i'm still, still dreaming magnificent things
by anthrop
Summary: "Brother," he says, dismayed. He reaches out to touch Ed's hunched shoulder, to comfort him, to help him on his feet, to carry him bodily to the Rockbells' house if he has to to make sure Ed will be okay—but his hand passes right through Ed instead. (An AU where Alphonse's ghost is trapped in the in-between, blaming himself for everything that went wrong that night.)
1. Chapter 1

_Written for paigyloli on Tumblr for a FMA Secret Santa exchange, as well as for teamalphonse who came up with the ghost!Alphonse idea in the first place. I side-eyed my 27 Danny Phantom fics and was like, "You had me at ghost," haha. Fic title comes from San Fermin's "Rennaisance!", though I admit Oren Lavie's "Don't Let Your Hair Grow Too Long" was a close contender._

* * *

Alphonse wakes up.

Or—no. No, that's silly. He's standing up. It's just very dark wherever he's at, and he can't remember what it was he'd been doing before this.

Maybe he was sleepwalking? He's never done it before and neither has Ed or Winry or Granny. Mrs. Sheridan at the post office sleepwalks, and so did Tommy Granger before he went off to boot camp. There might be other people in the town proper who sleepwalk, but Mrs. Sheridan and Tommy are the only ones he and Ed ever knew about because they always went out of their houses. He and Ed found Tommy once, not long after they'd gotten back from training with Teacher. The older boy had been really confused and kept going on about apple cider until he woke up properly, then he swore, ruffled their hair, and told them off for being up so late.

Anyway, right. Maybe Alphonse has been sleepwalking. He's awake now though, and he's still inside—at least, he thinks so. The moon was nearly full, and it was still rising when they'd gone down with the final prepared ingredients for their transmutation carefully balanced between them—

Oh, duh. He's got to be in the basement.

He squints into the dark until dim shapes make themselves known. The bookshelves, the tables, the wooden crates, beakers and tubes catching pale light from the little window wedged up by the ceiling.

"Ed?"

The lanterns must have all gone out in the transmutation. He takes a few cautious steps as his eyes adjust. The white chalk of their array stands out brightest on the floor, but there are thick black smears all around the edge of it nearest him, and inside it, and in the center where the shallow tray had been is a dark, huddled shape. Alphonse's breath catches; he wrings his hands, not daring to hope but still, maybe, _maybe—_

"Mom?"

The shape doesn't move. But that's definitely an arm, too long to be Ed's. It has to be her. It _is_ her. It _worked,_ it really worked!

"Mom!"

She still doesn't move, but that's fine, she must be exhausted. Ed must have run upstairs to get her some clothes. Alphonse rushes to her and drops to his knees, reaching out to touch her hand—

—and it's only then, with the dark of the basement and his own eagerness clouding his vision, that he sees. Her skinned face. Her yawning, split-open ribs. The huge pool of blood. The coil of intestines spilling out of her belly. How terribly still she lays.

He reels back, smothering a scream. No. _No._ What—? Is she—? She is, she's—she's— _no._ This isn't what they wanted—oh, what happened? What _happened_? Why didn't it work? Why did it—? She's dead, she's dead _again_ and they _killed her_ —

Where's Ed?

It takes him a few tries to get to his feet, shaking so badly that he almost loses his balance and falls into her—it—her—not her, please, let them have been so wrong that she was never alive, let them never have brought her back at all, please—

He breathes. He breathes. He. He's got to find Ed.

He staggers out of the basement, banishing the thought of that glassy-eyed _thing_ sloughing to pieces down there. He's got to find Ed. All of that blood didn't belong to—to that. There'd been a pool outside the array, smaller and smeared across the concrete. There's blood all up the stairs, and across the white walls of the hall too, like garish streaks of fingerpaint. Low, closer to the baseboard, like Ed had had to crawl on his hands and knees.

A rebound. That's the only explanation. Their array was wrong—despite all their checking and rechecking, despite all their hard work, despite _years_ —it was wrong. That's all there is to it. They were wrong despite their every precaution. There was a rebound that tore the—the transmutation apart and seriously injured Ed as well.

But what about himself?

He hesitates halfway down the hall, where dim moonlight spills through a crack in the curtain. He looks at himself; his hands, his arms, his torso, his legs. There's not a drop of blood on him anywhere. He doesn't hurt at all. Why didn't the rebound affect him too? Or—or maybe it did, but not as aggressively? He'd been knocked out, right? That must be why Ed had left without him; Ed couldn't wake him up, and whatever the rebound had done to Ed had hurt him badly enough that he couldn't afford to wait around. A few minutes or a few hours; Ed would have gone to Granny and Winry for something serious enough to leave this much blood.

Alphonse swallows as a terrible thought occurs to him: _if_ Ed could make it on his own.

"Edward? Brother! Where are you?!"

He runs down the hall, veers into the entrance hall and finds the front door wide open. The storm had broken while he'd been unconscious and now rain is pouring down in sheets. The coat closet is cracked too—no, that's not right. Part of the door is _gone_ completely. Alphonse hesitates again, frowning at the rough transmutation marks marring the wood. What had Ed been doing? Never mind, never mind, he just needs to find Ed, _now._

Heedless of the rain he sprints into the storm, calling out for his brother. The dirt path has been beaten to mud already but he doesn't slip. He pounds up the path from their house to the main road, running as fast as he can. His brother's hurt. He doesn't know how badly, but there had been so much blood—please, let him get there in time— _please._

Across the bridge, still no sign of Ed. From here it's another half-mile to the Rockbell's, and it's pitch black. No lanterns anywhere. Why wouldn't Ed take one? But no, idiot, Ed's hurt, he might not have a hand to spare and it's not like he took one either. Faster, _faster,_ please—

There!

There's a huddled yellow shape collapsed in the ditch. Ed's raincoat. _Ed._

"Brother!" Alphonse skids to a clumsy stop beside Ed, who isn't moving. Alphonse's throat closes up, sinking again to his knees. Oh, please no, please, pleasepleaseplease—" _Brother!"_

Ed _sobs_.

It's startling enough to leave Alphonse speechless; Ed _hates_ crying. He always gets so embarrassed if someone catches him at it. Alphonse can't remember ever hearing Ed sound so—so _broken_.

"Brother," he says, dismayed. He reaches out to touch Ed's hunched shoulder, to comfort him, to help him on his feet, to carry him bodily to the Rockbells' house if he has to to make sure Ed will be okay—

—but his hand passes right _through_ Ed instead.

Alphonse yanks his hand back with a yelp, wild-eyed. What? Did—did that happen? He looks at his hands. They look fine, but then why wouldn't they? He imagined it. He must have.

Ed sobs again, weaker and fraught with pain, then reaches for a length of wood in the mud Alphonse hadn't noticed. There's another one on Ed's other side. It's only once Ed's pushed himself into an awkward sitting position as he braces one of the sticks under his armpit that Alphonse realizes what it was Ed did to the closet door.

"Crutches? What did you make crutches fo—"

Ed's left leg is _gone_.

Ed drags himself onto his one remaining knee with a cry that sounds wrenched out of him. Alphonse can only watch, stricken, as Ed gasps raggedly and heaves himself onto his right foot and the crutches. He sways, nearly falling down again but catching himself awkwardly. " _Dammit,"_ he seethes. "Dammit, _c'mon."_

Alphonse doesn't understand. Rebounds don't _take_ parts of you. They injure, they maim and mutilate, they shred and break you. But Ed's leg is just _gone_. "Oh my god," Alphonse whispers, reaching out on reflex to help steady Ed. But his hand passes through Ed's arm again, and he's looking this time to see it really happen. It doesn't even feel like anything, like catching smoke from a blown-out candle in his palm. What's going on? He looks at his hands again, forcing his attention on himself rather than Ed's labored hobble. His hands are fine. It's Ed's leg—gone, it's gone, _it's gone_ —that took the rebound, or whatever happened. _He's_ fine. So what the hell is going on?

The rain. It's raining. It's pouring down buckets, but he hasn't gotten wet.

He watches raindrops pass clean through his palms, unable to believe what's happening right before his eyes. He drops his hands, looking to his legs. He's kneeling in the mud and it should be freezing, it should have soaked through his jeans. The mud should be disturbed, here where he's knelt and back the way they both came. But there's only the smear of where Ed collapsed and forced himself to his feet—foot, foot, he's only got one, the other one is _gone_ —and Ed's three-pronged tracks. There's no sign of Alphonse having followed. There's no sign that Alphonse is _here_.

"No," he rasps. "Brother. _Edward._ Ed, hang on—just. Wait a minute. What's going on?"

Ed gives no sign that he's heard him.

Alphonse gets to his feet—he doesn't slide in the mud, he leaves no footprints, how did he not notice before?—and catches up to Ed. He tries to grab him, but his hands only swing through his brother uselessly. Ed sobs again through tightly clenched teeth, forcing his way on, and on. Granny and Winry live at the top of a hill. It's a shallow incline, but from where they're at Alphonse still can't see the lights of their house. It may as well be on the moon given how slowly Ed's moving.

His _leg…_. The two of them know how to handle small injuries, cuts and minor burns and even broken fingers (Al had broken one of his sparring just a few months ago. Ed had rolled out of the way and he'd punched a wall. They'd laughed about it after but at the time he couldn't _believe_ how much it had hurt.), but this? And with how much blood Ed had left in their house? There's no _time_. Ed won't make it on his own, and Alphonse can't help him. Not directly, anyhow.

"Just be strong," Alphonse tells him. "Hold on. I'll go get help. I don't know what's going on but you're going to be okay, Ed, I promise. Just hold on a little longer."

Ed's eyes scrunch shut as his crutches slip in the mud. He doesn't fall, but it's a near thing, a dear cost to keep his feet—foot—under him. He spits out a scream through clenched teeth.

Alphonse _runs_.

He makes it to Rockbell Automail in record time. He takes the stairs in two sets of three, reaches for the doorknob mid-step only to have his hand pass neatly through it. Momentum carries him forward however, and _he_ passes through the _door_ without any resistance at all. He staggers into the house with a yelp, blinking in the sudden brightness. Granny's at the dining table sorting through brightly colored wires and Winry's standing on tiptoe at the sink washing out a mug. Neither of them look over at his sudden appearance. Neither of them notice him at _all._

" _Granny!_ Ed's hurt! Please come quick!"

Nothing.

"Winry! Winry, please, can you hear me? Ed's hurt!"

 _Nothing._

He stomps over to Granny, waving his hands wildly. He tries to bang his fist on the table and he passes right through it, falling to the floor with another yelp. There's no crash as he hits the wood, and Granny doesn't so much as glance his way.

"What's going on? Please, please tell me you can hear me. Ed's going to die!"

He hears the tell-tale click of nails and automail as Den trots out of the hall, ears pricked as he looks this way and that. Alphonse clambers to his feet—automatically trying to brace himself on the table only to pass through and fall down again, what the _hell_ is happening—and dares to ask, "Den?"

Den's snout points right at him, ears perked and tail wagging in that small, tucked-down way dogs have of showing they're confused. Alphonse shakes his head in disbelief. He's _invisible_ somehow and only the _dog_ can hear him. Right, okay, fine. He can freak out about this later. Right now Ed needs him to get help, so. So, here he is, asking the _dog_ to help.

"Den, it's me. It's Al. Ed's hurt. Ed needs help. Come on, boy, listen to me! Ed's in trouble!"

Den barks, startling Granny and Winry. "What's the matter?" Winry asks, setting her mug on the dish rack to dry. Den barks again, stiff-legged, tail wagging harder as he sniffs around the kitchen table. Alphonse stumbles out of his way, reaching out to pet him only to watch his hand sink through Den's spine to his knuckles. Den's hackles raise in a shiver and he dances out of Alphonse's reach, barking louder.

"Den," Alphonse begs. "Come on, go to Ed!"

Whining now, Den darts to the front door and hops in place, tail a blur behind him. Granny tuts, leaning back some to tap her pipe against the ashtray at her elbow. "What's gotten into that dog?"

"I dunno," Winry says, walking to the door. "He usually hates the rain, but I guess if you gotta go, you gotta go."

She's barely able to open the door a crack before Den worms his way through, darting off into the darkness and barking loudly. Alphonse and Winry both call out to him, but Den doesn't come back. Alphonse slaps a hand to his forehead, out of ideas. Invisible and no one but the _dog_ can hear him, and the dog just went and ran off into the storm. Ed's still out there and Alphonse can't help him, and he doesn't know what to do—

Winry shouts out on the porch. "Den, you dummy! Come back!" There's barking again, but the pitch of it's changed, gone high and rapid, more of a yelp. "Den? Den!"

"Don't go out there," Granny chastises. "You'll get washed away."

"Something's wrong," Winry says. She looks over her shoulder, worry furrowing her brow. "I think something's out there."

" _Yes!"_ Alphonse shouts. "It's Ed! Go get him! Please, Winry, come on, go get him!"

Granny sighs, setting the tangle of wires down. "Coat and a flashlight, then. I'll be along in a minute."

"We both don't have to get wet," Winry laughs, fetching her slicker from the coat rack. "It's probably just a raccoon or something."

"Would you stop _standing_ there?" Alphonse fumes. "GO!"

Den barks again, louder and more frantic still. Winry and Granny both have the decency to look concerned, but not _nearly_ as much as they ought to be considering Ed is bleeding out just a few hundred yards from their porch. Winry pulls her slicker on, grabs the flashlight off the kitchen counter, and dashes out into the rain. Alphonse is only a step behind her, whispering fervently that Den will find Ed, that Den will lead Winry to Ed, that Winry will be able to help Ed up the hill, that Granny will be able to save Ed, please, please, _please—_

* * *

And that's exactly what happens.

It's only after Ed, gray-faced and loose-limbed, has been bundled up in one of the spare rooms that Granny takes a deep, steadying breath and tells Winry, "I'm going to find Alphonse. Keep a close eye on him, alright?"

"Yes, Granny," Winry chirps at the same time Ed rasps, "No."

Granny frowns. "Hush. Get some rest. I'll sort things out from here. Don't worry about Al—"

"No," Ed repeats. "It took him."

Alphonse, who spent the entire terrible time Granny and Winry cleaned and bandaged the shocking red stump where Ed's leg used to be in a corner out of the way, frowns too. "What are you talking about?"

The pause between him asking, Granny asking the same question, and Ed's reply is enough that Alphonse knows there's no way Ed heard him. He still doesn't understand why no one can hear him, and it _stings_ that his own brother won't—can't—look his way. "He's gone. It took him. There's nothing left of him. He's gone and it's all my fault—"

"Hush," Granny repeats, brushing Ed's bangs out of his sweaty face. Ed twists away, but Alphonse still sees the fresh tears down his cheeks. "Rest, Ed. You're going to be just fine."

Granny and Winry leave the room, leave the door cracked enough that Al can slip through and pretend parts of him don't pass through the frame. He follows them to the sitting room, where Granny presses one bony hand to the dining table and _sighs._ She looks ten years older than when Alphonse and Ed had left after dinner just a few hours earlier. It feels like it's been ten years to Alphonse too.

Winry fidgets, still in the smock Granny had barked at her to put on. Ed's blood is smeared across it. "What did he mean? About Al?"

"...I don't know. I haven't the faintest idea what they could have gotten up to that could have hurt Ed so badly, let alone—" Granny breaks off abruptly, smacking the table before she stomps over to the front door.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to be sure," Granny says as she fetches her own coat off the rack, pulling it on jerkily. She's _afraid,_ Alphonse realizes. He saw her like this once before, when the news came from Ishval about Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy. If he stood close enough he thinks he'd see her aged hands tremble. He stays where he is. "Ed's lost a lot of blood. He isn't thinking clearly. I'm going to go find Alphonse. Stay here. Don't leave the house."

"But—"

 _"I said stay!"_

Winry flinches, hugging herself like she's cold. She's had tears in her eyes ever since she'd staggered up the porch with Ed out cold on her back. Maybe before that too. Granny only looks up once she's buttoned her coat, and her fear is too obvious, too frightening in its own right. Grown ups aren't ever supposed to look so scared.

"We're sorry," Alphonse tells her. "We thought it would work. We thought we could bring Mom back. We had no idea this was going to happen. We're sorry."

Granny says, "Keep an eye on Ed. I won't be gone long."

"'Kay," Winry replies, but doesn't go back to Ed's room until after Granny's fetched the flashlight off the floor where Winry had dropped it and shut the front door behind her. She takes Den with her, so there's—apparently—no way for Alphonse to get Winry's attention. What could he even say if Winry could hear him? _Don't worry, Granny's not going to find me. I'm right here, you just can't see or hear me?_

He tries anyway. "Winry?"

She sighs, drops her arms to hang limply at her sides. She looks at the door a moment longer, then straightens her shoulders and turns back down the hall. He listens to her footsteps fade, to the thin creak of door hinges swinging open, to Winry's voice speaking too quietly for him to discern the words. He stays put, as torn as she'd been. More, maybe.

 _He's gone. It took him._

What did Ed mean by that? What happened when they activated their transmutation circle? He thinks back and remembers blue light turning red, and being _terrified_ —

—and nothing else. He's never seen a transmutation circle burn red. Is that what a rebound looks like? But no, no. It wasn't a rebound. It couldn't have been a rebound. They'd read up extensively on the topic—at least, they'd made note of every single mention of rebounds in Dad's library, and Teacher's too. Rebounds don't make you invisible. Rebounds don't make it so no one else can hear you. Nothing should be able to do that.

He should go after Granny. It's late, and dark, and the storm's only just begun to subside. She shouldn't be out there on her own. Even if she did take Den with her, it isn't safe. She could slip and fall. She could break something, and Winry might not dare disobey her no matter how long she's gone. Granny won't find him, so there's no point in looking for him. But—but she'll find _Mom,_ and that—

He _can't_.

He _can't_ go back there. Not now, not again. He doesn't want to see her—it—her. He just wants to climb into bed with Ed, hold his big brother tight and tell him it's okay, it will all be okay, they're both going to be okay. But Ed almost died tonight. Ed's leg is gone and Alphonse is—he's—

Oh.

That's the word Granny stopped herself from saying before. She thinks—because of how badly Ed was injured, and how long it took to stabilize and bandage and calm him, and that if Ed had been so bad off then Alphonse must have been worse—she thinks he's _dead_.

Well.

That. That's—it's—

Alphonse shakes his head, hugs himself tightly and imagines as hard as he can that he can feel his own arms wrapped around his middle. He can't go there. He can't go home. Not tonight. Later, some unspecified later, he'll consider that thought and everything it carries with it. Right now he just wants to sit beside Winry and watch Ed as he sleeps. He wants to reassure himself that Ed, at least, is going to be fine.

* * *

Ed falls asleep not long after Granny left. Winry falls asleep not long before Granny comes back. Alphonse watches Granny shuck off her soaked coat, watches her ignore the trail of water she leaves in her wake to the cupboard where she keeps the whiskey. She skips a glass and takes a pull straight from the bottle, hissing through her teeth as she sinks down into the nearest available chair. She sits there a long, long time, and never once does she seem to hear a one of Alphonse's apologies.

At last, after she's had enough whiskey to put some color back in her face and still the shake of her hands, Granny caps the bottle again. She fills her pipe. It takes two matches to light it; the first breaks and the second one she nearly drops. She sets it between her teeth and breathes in, and in, and then breathes out a long pale plume of smoke.

And she croaks, "Oh, _Trisha."_

She finishes her smoke, taps out the embers, sets her pipe beside the ashtray. She's aged ten more years again, if the slow groan she makes as she gets to her feet is anything to go by. She's been old all of Alphonse's life but now she seems ancient, wizened, like how the woodcuts of wood nymphs were drawn in one of Dad's old storybooks. She moves like driftwood, brittle and dry. Alphonse wrings his hands, wanting to help. He'd already tried to touch her though, and his hands had passed through hers the same as Ed's. It makes no _sense._ He looks solid to his own eyes, but the proof is right here; Granny is crying in front of him, something she has never once done in his life.

She puts the whiskey away, turns out the lights, and goes to bed.

* * *

It's morning. Alphonse has been awake all night. He isn't tired. He isn't hungry. He isn't cold. He isn't anything.

Winry's the first one up and about, stretching to get the stiffness out of her back from falling asleep at Ed's bedside. She goes out to the hand pump with a bowl, scratching Den behind the ears as the dog follows her out before trotting off to do his morning business. Alphonse follows too, watches her fill the bowl with well water. It's one of the bowls they use for cleaning bandages. Alphonse swallows. He doesn't want to see Ed's bandages changed. He doesn't want Ed to _need_ bandages at all. But morning's come and he hasn't woken up from this nightmare. Ed's leg is still gone and he's still dead.

"Good morning, Winry," he tells her as she makes her way past him back to the house. There are shadows under her eyes, her mouth thin with worry. It doesn't look like she slept well.

He follows her into the kitchen where she sets the bowl on the stove to heat up. She fetches another bowl and repeats the process. One bowl to clean Ed's bandages, one bowl to clean Ed. She lights the potbelly stove in the main room to warm up the house, brushes bits of bark off her hands once that's done. She goes back to the kitchen, pulls a pan off its hook and eggs out of the icebox, sets to making breakfast, standing on tiptoe now and then to watch the bowls for bubbles.

Granny comes out of her room before long, looking as rough around the edges as Winry does. Worse, maybe. She peeks her head into Ed's room then goes out to the kitchen. She watches Winry a moment, who hasn't noticed her yet, and some of that weariness seems to fade. Granny doesn't smile, but her eyes crinkle like she wants to. "Beans for Ed too," she says. "He needs the iron."

"Oh! Oh, sure. I was going to go get some spinach from the garden too, if you don't mind watching the stove for a few minutes?"

"Go on then."

Alphonse stays with Granny in the kitchen while Winry dashes off to their backyard garden with a wicker basket. He watches her knock about the kitchen with a smile. Granny's lived here in Rockbell Automail her whole life, learned her trade under her parents, who learned it from her own grandparents. She could navigate breakfast with her eyes closed and her hands tied behind her back, he thinks, and it'd still taste better than almost anybody else's cooking.

(The best cook in the whole wide world as far as Alphonse and Ed are concerned had been their Mom. Granny tried to recreate some of the recipes out of Mom's cookbook and they were always delicious, sure, but they were never _right_. Not exactly.)

She only pulls two plates out of the cupboard, which makes Alphonse frown curiously. Maybe she isn't hungry, but Winry had put enough eggs in the pan for three and Granny had put a whole can of beans to cooking as well. Alphonse doubts Ed's going to be hungry enough to eat that much. The bowls of water have started boiling so she pulls one off for now and lowers the temperature of the other so it can't boil over.

Winry comes back inside with Den at her heels. "Thanks, Granny. Actually, do you mind finishing up breakfast? I want to see if Ed's up."

"If he isn't you may as well wake him. His bandages need changing. Think you can handle that on your own?"

Winry hesitates, but steels herself when Granny looks over her shoulder at her. "Y-yeah, of course."

"Good girl. I'll be along to help once I've finished here. Don't spill any water now."

"I know, Granny."

Alphonse watches her carefully carry both bowls into Ed's room, then grab fresh towels and sponges from the surgery room. He follows her into Ed's room after that, watches her wake Ed with forced cheer in her voice, watches her help Ed drink a glass of water before she gets to work on his bandages. He watches Ed wince and hiss and grit his teeth, fist his hands in the sheets until his knuckles burn white, whimper as the bandages tug against his stump even though Winry wet them with a warm sponge first. The empty space where his leg should be is just as horrifying as what's beneath the bandages. Alphonse can't imagine the pain Ed is feeling, even with whatever pain relievers Granny's giving him.

Winry gets him cleaned and re-bandaged in due time, and then she sits there for a minute just holding Ed's hand. "You're going to be okay," she says softly.

Ed doesn't look at her. He hadn't looked at her once, not since Alphonse walked in after her. It's like he can't bring himself to meet her eyes, like the guilt won't let him. "Who cares," he says dully.

"I do," Winry protests. "And Granny does too, and—"

"I killed her," Ed snaps, tearing his hand away. "It was my idea to try and bring our Mom back and now they're both gone!"

"Edward!"

Ed rolls over—or tries, but he jars his stump and goes white and rigid with a yelp. Winry reaches out but Ed slaps her hand away. "Get out," he says. "Please. Just. Leave me alone."

"Stop that," Alphonse chides. "It was both our idea. We put in the same amount of work. It's not your fault, brother—"

"Breakfast is almost ready," Winry says, pausing at the door. "You need your strength, so you have to eat."

Ed says nothing, head turned away from her. She leaves, shutting the door before Alphonse can slip through after her. He tries to grab the doorknob, but of course his hand just passes through it. He holds it there, knuckles and fingers curled in the same space as the brass knob. It shouldn't be possible, mashing the molecules of two solid objects into the same space. He should be screaming in pain, just as Ed had been last night. But he can't feel anything at all.

"Brother," he whispers. "I don't understand what's happened."

Ed says nothing. Not because he's ignoring him, but because he can't _hear_ him. Alphonse wishes more than anything that Ed was just ignoring him. This is so much worse than any fight they've ever had. He grimaces at the door. It won't hurt, he reminds himself. It won't feel like anything, because—because he's—because he's _dead_.

He takes a running start to pass through it anyway.

In the kitchen Granny's saying, "—long I'll be gone, so I'm trusting you to take care of things."

Winry doesn't ask where she's going so maybe Granny already said. She probably did, judging from the stricken expression Winry's wearing. Alphonse swallows. He's pretty sure he knows too. But why would she want to go back to their house? She _saw—_

"When I get back I want you to go into town to pick up a few things. If there's anything you or Ed want, make a list for yourself."

"Yes, Granny."

Granny pauses then, looking too old again as she cleans her glasses on the hem of her skirt. "Do you understand what the boys did?"

"I... I'm not sure…."

"Something taboo among alchemists. Something _illegal_ in this country. If word got out Ed tried to bring their mother back he'd be killed for it. They'd take him away and hang him, never mind he's just a boy or that it nearly got him killed along with Alphonse. So you mustn't breathe a word of what he did to anyone."

Winry whispers, "I won't. I promise."

"You and I are the closest thing to family he has left. We have to take care of him."

"Of course." She hesitates, hands tangled together, biting her lip so she doesn't cry. "Al's... Al's really dead?"

Granny pulls her close and hugs her fiercely. "It's going to be alright. Just make sure Ed gets something in his stomach for now."

She doesn't take anything with her, tells Den to stay put when he tries to follow her out of the house. Then it's a long, quiet walk to their house. Alphonse walks alongside her, eyes on the muddy path. He doesn't want to go with her. But it was dark last night, and all his thoughts were on Ed and the... _thing_ they'd transmuted. He hadn't look around the basement, not properly. He didn't see his body. He didn't see what happened to himself. If he goes now, with Granny, then it's almost like they're going together. It will be a little easier that way.

At their house Granny goes to the shed in the backyard. She pulls out a shovel and Mom's gardening gloves, stiff with disuse. She goes inside, walking briskly past the dried smears of Ed's blood on the floor and baseboards, so much worse to look at in the warm morning light. She goes to the linen closet, pulling out a spare sheet, then another. She pokes her head in a few rooms until she finds what she's looking for in Dad's study, going in and coming out again with the big lantern they keep in there to read by.

Then she goes down into the basement, and Alphonse freezes at the top of the stairs.

He can't. He _can't._ It's down there. _She's_ down there. Mom—her skinned face, bright white teeth and sunken eyes, one twisted arm reaching out of the circle to the pool of blood where Ed's leg had been torn away—

He can't.

He has to.

He has to know what happened. He died. He's _dead_. Their transmutation killed him—and Mom _again,_ he's sorry, they're sorry, _please—_

—but. But he's still _here_. It makes no sense. So he has to go down there too.

Just. One step at a time. He's been up and down these stairs a million times before. Sixteen steps, nine of them creaky.

Just. One. Step. At. A. Time.

And then he's down in the basement, eyes scrunched tight. He hears the bright hiss of a match being struck; when he looks up at the ceiling he sees warm light playing across it, Granny's shadow a wavering black stripe down the wall. Granny makes this low, awful, creaking sort of sigh that makes Alphonse feel like hiding under the desk. She says to herself, "Too smart for their own good," and Alphonse shrinks down further. People have been saying that about them for as long as he can remember, fond and frustrated and fascinated, but here it just sounds—

—sad.

He has to look. He _has_ to look. How's he going to learn anything about what went wrong last night if he doesn't look? Quit being a coward and _look—_

"Oh," he whispers.

There's so _much_ blood, is the thing. He can hardly look anywhere near their array without seeing dried and clotted streaks and pools of it. The pool of blood belonging to Ed is right in front of him. And right beyond that is the array, carefully measured and chalked out on a floor they'd transmuted perfectly level months ago. And beyond that—Mom's hand, reaching for where Ed had been, and beyond that—

He focuses on her hand, firmly ignoring anything beyond her broken elbow. It's too thin. Skeletal. Her nails are thick and yellow, more like Den's claws than fingernails. There are scraps of skin, bubbled and peeling back to expose the mangled muscles, the taut tendons, the brittle bones. It's barely recognizable as human, let alone as Mom's.

He looks away, back at Ed's blood, and only then sees a familiar pair of shoes to his right. His _own_ shoes, the very same shoes he's wearing right now. And there, his pants, and his shirt too, all laid out neatly together in the shape of him. The same clothes he's wearing now, right there on the floor.

Alphonse swallows. There's no blood on his clothes-on-the-floor, the same as the clothes-he's-wearing-right now. No worrying lumps, no stains, no clumps of hair, nothing at all like the _thing_ that was Mom for a few minutes at most before she died again. Their transmutation failed catastrophically, but it _wasn't_ a rebound. The proof is right here, staring him in the face. If it had been a rebound, his body would be here all tangled up and staining his clothes. His body would look like Mom's, laying just a few feet away.

He's just… gone. Killed and tidied away, like his atoms were scattered and swept under the rug—

Oh, oh _gross,_ were his atoms really scattered? Is Granny _breathing_ him right now? He firmly shuts that thought away for later (preferably never) and watches Granny work. This comes with the unfortunate consequence of looking at Mom directly, because _she's_ why Granny brought down the spare sheets and gardening gloves.

Mom is—

 _Mom is—_

Skinned face, overlarge teeth jutting out of a too-small jaw—her neck twisted at a terrible angle—her outstretched hand dislocated and grasping—her other hand stuck out of the center of her chest, curled in like a dead spider's leg—ribs wrenched wide open, bleached white and untouched by the dark flesh curdled at their bases—recognizable small intestine spilled across her hips, a kidney perched atop two coils—blood dried to a wide ink stain still damp in a few places—the gleam of clearer fluids dried to a glaze across their array, mucus or lymph or cerebrospinal or stomach acid—

Mom is a monster they made and murdered, and Alphonse can't even remember _doing_ it.

He breathes. He breathes and he breathes and he claps both hands over his mouth to _stop that_ because he doesn't need to, does he? He's just standing here, dead and panicking, and _Granny's_ the one who has to touch Mom. Granny's the one who has to fold up her dead spider limbs and wind her stiff, wet corpse into the sheets. Fluids stain the cream colored sheets. There's no hiding the almost-person shape of Mom's corpse as Granny ties off each end so it will be easier to drag Mom's corpse up the stairs and out into the yard to be buried.

"We're sorry," Alphonse says, and he doesn't know which of them he's saying it to. Granny can't hear him and if there's some wisp of Mom's soul still tied to that thing—please no, please, _please,_ let her be gone again, let her be dead, don't let her be trapped like he is, don't let her suffer one second more because of their arrogance, _please_ —he can't see it. But he says it anyway, over and over again, hoping it will bleed through somehow. He can't help Granny in this. He can only bear witness.

Mom's second grave is shallower than her first. There's no coffin, no headstone. Only Granny, wheezing and shaking and too old and frail to be doing something as backbreaking as this on her own—but what's the alternative? Mom is rolled out of the sheets, landing face-down with a sickening crunch of her half-formed bones. Mom is buried again, one muddy swing of the shovel at a time.

And that's it.

It's over. It's done.

Granny moans, low and overwrought. The shovel is the only thing keeping her upright but the ground is soft from last night's storm. The blade sinks, losing purchase, wobbling dangerously. Granny sinks too; to her knees, to the ground, the shovel falling away from her. She falls in slow-motion, as if she hopes the ground will swallow her up too.

She sits there a long, long time. Saying nothing. Looking at the mound where Mom is dead and buried again. She ages, and ages, and she is made ancient by grief and weariness and loneliness and duty.

"You bastard," she croaks at long last. Alphonse doesn't know who she means, but it's a flash of anger, a flash of strength. Granny finds it in herself to stand up, to gather the sheets, the shovel, the gardening gloves, and she begins the long walk home.

Alphonse follows after. There's nothing else he can do.

* * *

Days pass. Long, interminable days and nights and hours and minutes tick-tocked by with no way of escaping the finality of time passing by without ever touching him.

He doesn't tire. He doesn't hunger. He doesn't thirst. He feels nothing. Nothing touches him. He just is.

He curls up in a corner of Ed's room. He sinks into himself, head wedged between his bent knees and elbows. He tries to cry and nothing happens. He just sits there. He listens to Granny and Winry care for Ed. Help him wash. Change his bandages. Coax him to eat. Talk at him. Kind whispers, soft nothings. Ed says nothing too. Ed allows himself to be handled like a doll. Ed is made meek, quiet, pliant. Ed's eyes are flat bronze coins set in sleepless hollows. Alphonse is there for every nightmare that tears Ed open. It's the only thing he can be.

Days pass. Identical days. Identical nights. Identical hours, tick-tocked away by clocks Alphonse wants to smash but can't even touch.

And then— _change._

Change in the sudden, shocking, stomping appearance of two soldiers striding through Rockbell Automail's front door. A man, dark-haired and dark-eyed, and a woman with short hair as blonde as Winry's who remains by the front door as Granny shouts at them to get out of her home. The man ignores her, his eyes landing on Ed with frightening intensity. Alphonse can only watch as the man hauls Ed out of his wheelchair and demands answers. His voice is an exclamation point, deep and commanding, shattering the brittle silence that has reigned here for too long. _"We went to your house. We saw the floor. What was that? What did you do?"_

Ed shrinks even further into himself. His breath shakes, on the verge of tears, and he says nothing in his defense to this stranger in his blue uniform with stars and stripes and ribbons standing out bright and shining. Alphonse gets to his feet and tries to reach up and tug the man's arm down, to force him to let his brother go. But of course his hands pass harmlessly through. He is useless; invisible and mute.

"We're sorry," he tells the man. He begs. Please, please, let someone here him. Let this soldier know they had no ill intent. They just wanted to see Mom's smile again, and all they did was kill her again and take him along with her. Except here he is set apart from everything and forced to watch this stranger shake Ed like the rag doll he's been reduced to by their failure. "We didn't mean it. We're sorry. We're sorry. We're sorry."

The man is Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang. The woman is Second Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. He is a State Alchemist recruiting prospective alchemical talent from the civilian populace. She is his adjutant. She has a holster with a pistol, presumably loaded, at her hip. He does not. She follows Winry out into the hall for tea. He sits down at the dining table with Granny opposite him once she's wheeled Ed over—making a point to smooth his shirt and glower a bit first.

Granny fills her pipe, lights it, breathes in, breathes out a plume of smoke. From the way Lieutenant Colonel Mustang's nose wrinkles discreetly, it's her strong stuff. Then, her glower unwavering, she tells him what happened.

Ed says nothing. Clarifies nothing, defends nothing. He sits there in his wheelchair with his flat coin eyes and his shrunken shoulders and his hands loose on the armrests. Alphonse knows just as well as Ed does what this soldier's presence means. Granny knows too that the game is up. A regular soldier who saw their bloodied array could conclude all sorts of things, but they'd be jumping at shadows that Granny could scornfully tear apart. But a State Alchemist?

No, this soldier knows exactly what he and Ed attempted. There's no running. Granny can only state the facts and plead on Ed's behalf and hope that there is a scrape of decency in this cold-eyed man's heart. If he won't walk away and leave Ed forgotten in their little tucked-away village in the mountains, then maybe at least he won't drag Ed away to be tried and executed in Central. Maybe Lieutenant Colonels or State Alchemists have the power to try and execute little kids all on their own.

When Granny finishes she sets her pipe between her teeth and waits for what the man will do. Lieutenant Colonel Mustang looks back at her, unflinching, arms folded and creasing the sharp angles of his uniform jacket. He looks over at Ed, who keeps his eyes on the pitted surface of the table. He doesn't see Alphonse, standing defensively between him and Ed for all the good it would do.

Then Lieutenant Colonel Mustang does the unthinkable—he _praises_ Ed.

He is astonished by Ed's ability, his genius, his determination to survive against all odds. He thinks Ed could do— _will_ do—even greater and more astonishing things given half a chance. He came here with the intention of recruiting Edward _and_ Alphonse Elric, and while he is sorry for Ed's loss—here he hesitates, a flash of _decency's_ stunted relation _regret_ there and gone on his face—the offer still stands.

"I'd say he's more than qualified to become a State Alchemist," Lieutenant Colonel Mustang continues. "Should he choose to accept the position, he'll be required to serve the military in times of national emergency. In return, he'll receive privileges and access to otherwise restricted research materials. Given time, he may be able to restore his leg, or even more."

Ed says nothing, but his knuckles _burn_ white against the armrests of his wheelchair.

Granny takes her pipe from between her teeth and blows out another plume of smoke. Her glare has only hardened; any relief she might feel for the fact that this man has no intentions of killing Ed are carefully shut away. "Right after my granddaughter stumbled to my door with him, half-dead and covered in blood, I went over to their house to see for myself what had happened. What was there, whatever that _thing_ was, it wasn't human! Alchemy created that abomination. It killed his brother and nearly killed him too! And you want to throw him headlong into it? Would you really have him go through that kind of hell again?"

Lieutenant Colonel Mustang is silent a moment, and when he speaks his reply is solely to Ed. "If you agree, the decision is yours and yours alone. It's entirely up to you now. I'm not forcing you. I'm merely offering you the possibility. Whether to move forward or stay still. Will you sit in that chair wallowing in self-pity, or will you stand up and seize the chance the military can give you? It's your choice. You choose your own path. If you believe the possibility for restoring your limb, you should seek it out. Keep moving, whatever it takes. Even if the way ahead lies through a river of mud."

Not long after the soldiers take their leave, having left a train ticket and a letter and basic instructions for Ed in Granny's care. Ed said nothing, Granny said in no uncertain terms she wanted them to never darken her doorstep again, Second Lieutenant Hawkeye and Winry had parted smiling, and Lieutenant Colonel Mustang didn't walk out so much as swan out. Tall, preternaturally calm—apart from the bit where he'd shaken Ed and shouted—and holding out a lifesaver to drag Ed out of the mire. Alphonse very much wants to hate him, but offering Ed a job isn't the worse thing he could have done. He chooses to reserve judgement for now.

* * *

It's practically the next day that Ed is prepped for surgery.

There they gather: Ed in a gurney meant for a grown man, Granny and Winry in blue surgical scrubs and smocks, the gleaming steel trays with gleaming surgical implements, and Alphonse. He stands at the foot of the gurney, wringing his hands, unseen and unheard for even this crucial turning point.

"You're sure you won't regret this?" Granny asks.

"My mind's made up," Ed replies.

"Your mind has a few screws loose," Alphonse sighs.

Ed asks, "How long will the surgery and rehabilitation take?"

"Two years, more or less," Granny replies.

Ed takes a deep breath, that familiar, wonderful, _exhausting_ stubbornness igniting his eyes for the first time since that night. "I'll do it in one."

Granny and Winry look at him, stricken. Alphonse recalculates the number of loose screws in Ed's scruffy head from a few to _all of them,_ with a handful of pilfered ones rattling around for good measure. But Granny is at least half as crazy as he is. She _laughs_. "You'll be spitting blood, you know that?"

Ed nods. "He's alive. I'm sure of it. I can bring him back, but I need access to whatever the military's libraries might have and they won't take me without two legs. I'll endure whatever I have to to save him."

Granny and Winry share the same complicated, helpless, worried look they've taken to wearing ever since the soldiers left and Ed started talking again. That's the problem; all Ed _has_ talked about is this—subjecting himself to what's tantamount to prolonged torture so he can run off to join the military, do three times the amount of research the two of them ever did together, all to perform human transmutation _again_. Not to bring Mom back, but Alphonse.

When Alphonse realized what Ed means to do he got so blindingly _furious_ he forgot his predicament completely and tried to slug his stupid brother right in his _stupid face_. He'd whiffed, of course, and ended up falling right through Ed and wheelchair both to land in a heap on the floor. Not his best moment, but it had forced him to realize something that had been staring him in the face ever since he coaxed Den out the front door so Winry would go chasing after and find Ed dying in the mud.

He's a walking cold spot.

Wherever he touches someone goosebumps break out all down their skin and they shiver and roll their shoulders and tighten their jaws. They _react_. Granny and Winry and Ed have all passed him off as one of those inexplicable chills you get sometimes for no reason. "Like someone's gone walking over my grave," Granny muttered to herself once before going off to find the window someone had surely left cracked. Den knows it's him doing it because he usually warns Den beforehand so the dog doesn't startle and raise the whole household with his barking.

(He _still_ can't believe the absurdity of the damn dog being more sensitive to his presence than his own _brother_.)

It's silly, and he'd be embarrassed by how often he's taken to trailing his fingers across the four of them if any of them could see him at it, but those goosebumps and shivers and Den's raised hackles and alert ears are undeniable, irrefutable _proof_ of his existence. He still exists in some heretofore unrealized capacity. He's dead, yes, but he's _real_.

It's all he has left—chills on command, and Den's small whimpers when he started talking again too.

For now, though, he keeps his hands to himself as Winry folds back the sheet to unwind Ed's bandages. Granny is old and Winry inexperienced; they can't afford any distractions. People die during automail surgery; not as many as in decades past, but it still happens and it's rare for someone Ed's age to be put through this surgery at all.

Alphonse is glad to see life coming back to Ed again, even if he's putting all his eggs in a basket made of dreamstuff and delusions. He can't talk Ed out of what he means to try again one day, but he can be there for him every step of the way and pray Ed doesn't kill himself for a pipedream.

One of them should have a chance to grow up, at least.

* * *

The following year is—difficult.

First and foremost, watching Ed's outfitting is like having to watch Granny bury Mom over and over again. It's broken glass shards in his non-existent throat and palms and heart that he can't really, truly be there for his brother. Ed screams. Ed shakes. Ed _cries_. For three breathless, terrifying days Ed has a fever so high Granny orders a surplus of ice up from town and she and Winry outline and nearly bury Ed in ice packs. He's put back on the saline drip they'd just taken him off of. He lies so still, panting shallowly, half out of his mind when he drifts awake. He whimpers in his restless sleep and all Alphonse can do is hover his cold, non-existent hands against Ed's face and pray.

The fever breaks, surely beneath the stomping heel of Ed's stubbornness alone. Ed begins his rehabilitation the same day the bandages come off for good. It takes awhile for Alphonse not to startle whenever he catches a glimpse of the gleaming, unforgiving steel capping off Ed's stump. He winces and celebrates right alongside Winry for every hard-won inch of progress Ed makes.

When Ed isn't working himself to the point of sweat-soaked and shaking exhaustion, he reads. He reads constantly, barely sparing more than a few words with Granny and Winry unless they pry the books and notes and pens from his hands and put them out of arm's reach. He reads without interruptions otherwise, most often at night when his constant bad dreams leave him pale and wide-eyed, draw him back down to the mute doll he was in the days before Lieutenant Colonel Mustang dragged him out of his wheelchair. If the books are still on a shelf he can't reach on crutches, then he goes out onto the porch and sits on the top step until morning breaks, his eyes flat coins staring at the dark shape of their house in the distance. Alphonse sits with him and hopes that one night Ed will hear him say, "It wasn't your fault, it was mine."

Ed hasn't gone back to their house since that night. He gives Winry lists written out in neat cursive, lists of books and clothes and other things tacked on as an afterthought. Alphonse goes with her each time, every step of the way, even the time she ignored Granny's sharp-tongued warning to leave the basement be. Winry's legs had given out on the last stair and she'd sat there for a long time, blue eyes fixated on the black bloodstains, the white-chalked complexity of their failed array, Alphonse's empty clothes, Ed's forgotten boot. She was shaking before Alphonse touched her shoulder—"We're sorry. We're sorry. Please go back upstairs, Winry. We didn't mean for this to happen."—but she didn't cry until after.

When not looking after Ed—less and less as his rehabilitation proceeds at breakneck pace—Granny and Winry have other customers. No one else in need of outfitting, thank god for that, just adults who have lost pieces of themselves to accidents and illnesses and wars. Most of them are veterans of Ishval, feet and legs and fingers and hands and arms shot off, blown off, cut off, burned off, and so on. They share stories over drinks with Granny, and a few of them have Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy to thank for surviving that distant hell and always spare kind words for Winry that leave her flustered and teary-eyed. Ed, at least, ruffles her hair and does what he can to distract her when that happens.

There's also the matter of Ed's automail, the design of which Granny has entrusted entirely to Winry. The final design she settles on is beautiful in its own sleek, industrial simplicity. The blueprints are mostly gibberish to Alphonse's alchemically-oriented mind but from the way Winry rhapsodizes its specs it sounds like Ed will be able to make toothpicks out of an oak tree. So that should be fun to see if he puts it to the test one day.

But the most difficult thing by far about that year is the _boredom_.

There's no helping it, not really. He's intangible, invisible, and the closest thing to a conversation he can have is riling up Den until Granny gets fed up and throws the dog out of the house.

The trouble is, he lived and breathed alchemy for as long as he can remember—for longer, even. Mom took pictures of Ed teaching himself how to read out of Dad's old books, and Al had been sat right beside him, thumb in his mouth and eyes fixated on Ed's comically serious face. Now though, alchemy is a source of shame and horror. They spent all those years, more than half their lives, dedicated to bringing Mom back only for all their efforts to end in this: a second grave for Mom, nothing left of Alphonse to bury, and Ed's sanity a quietly fraying thing that neither Granny nor Winry nor least of all Alphonse have a hope of saving.

But just because the thought of performing alchemy makes Alphonse sick—abstractly, anyway—doesn't mean he wouldn't still do it if he _could_. Not doing alchemy would be like trying to go on without breathing. It's— _fundamental_. But here he is, incapable of doing either and going on anyway.

At best he can look over Ed's shoulder as he reads (apologizing reflexively when he accidentally brushes through Ed). It's the same books they've poured over a hundred times before; archaic spellings in archaic fonts on archaic paper, written in the complex codes and poems of alchemists long dead, all proclaiming the divinity and perfection of the Philosopher's Stone. So at least Alphonse knows the angle of Ed's research, the fixation of his worrying obsession, the method by which he intends to survive performing human transmutation a second time. Ed will chase down a myth, the fabled cause for the fall of Xerxes, plumb the stone from whatever dark tomb the equally mythical Philosopher secreted it away in, just to bend it towards a pipedream.

Well, maybe, maybe not. If Al's soul is bound to the earth somehow—he still hasn't seen a glimpse of Mom anywhere, and there's no way of knowing if she was a ghost after her first death too and dying a second time was too much for her soul to bear. On his own steam Ed has no hope of surviving the taboo again, let alone reviving Alphonse. But with the stone? _Maybe_. And that's more than enough for Ed, of course. But it's still such a risk. Even if he does find the Stone, or finds the means to make one of his own, who's to say he could use it without killing himself in the process? The Stone, if it's real, leveled a _civilization_ in a single night. What hope does one twelve year old have in harnessing it?

Of course, all of his own questions and theories and suppositions go unheard.

They used to stay up all night together bouncing increasingly outlandish ideas off one another before crashing for the hour or two of sleep they could manage before school. Now Ed is silent, saying none of his thoughts aloud, modifying their shared alchemical code until Alphonse can't make heads or tails of it. Ed still doesn't sleep through the nights uninterrupted by bad dreams, but the days and months pass and Alphonse gets accustomed to watching the sun rise and set alone.

* * *

The year passes. True to his word Ed is back in peak physical condition by the end of it. No, Alphonse thinks proudly, he's _better_ than that. He follows along with Ed during his cool down exercises in the dusty front yard of Rockbell Automail, admiring his strength, his speed, his _focus_. He was already trouncing all the other boys in Resembool back when he had two legs, but now when any of them summon the courage to spar against Ed it's like watching birds fly or fish swim. Ed is in his _element_ again, and there is a decimal point's percentage of Alphonse that is relieved he can't be on the receiving end of a kick from Ed's automail.

(Of course Alphonse knows he'd beat Ed in a fair fight if they could still spar together. He's just not sure the fights would still qualify as _fair_. Toothpicks out of an oak tree is right, holy _shit_.)

Winry is a genius, she really is. She's also more than a little bit terrifying when she hounds after Ed to take better care of _her_ automail. _No one's_ throwing arm should be that good at her age, let alone a girl's.

"I wasn't doing anything to it!" Ed protests, rubbing his head. It was a small wrench she'd hit him him with, but a steel projectile is a steel projectile.

"You're getting dust in the joints!"

"Which'll wash out when I take a shower!"

"Go put some shoes on!"

"Well it's a little late _now!"_

"Oh, for—would you just come inside already? It's time for lunch! Granny made spaghetti."

 _"Gross."_

Alphonse shakes his head. They've always bickered, but it's gotten a lot worse since he died. Granny's the closest thing to a buffer they've got and she's awful at it; she always takes Winry's side and bickers with Ed almost as much.

"There's really no need for you two to be at each other's throats all the time," he says, looking back at Ed—and the rest of his teasing dies in his throat. Ed is—Ed is—

Ed is _taller_.

Ed is almost a whole _head_ taller than him. When the hell did that happen? Alphonse has had two to seven centimeters on Ed for as long as he can remember; the difference in their heights fluctuated, sure, but _he's_ been taller than _Ed_ for as long as he can remember!

He watches Ed drop his hand from the back of his head with a huff. He watches Ed's short braid catch the sunlight as he shakes his head, muttering, "Crazy gearhead." He watches Ed walk to the house, hears the soft pad of his bare right foot and the click-whir-grind of his left. He watches the door shut and doesn't follow after, because he can't believe he missed something so _obvious_. He had watched Ed's twelfth birthday come and go—uncelebrated, bleak, and attended to only by Granny's glowering insistence on a cake (Al's birthday had been worse; Ed had shrunk back into himself and didn't speak for three days). Ed will be _thirteen_ this winter, and as for Alphonse?

He looks at his hands, his arms, his torso, his legs. He isn't real _enough_ to show up in mirrors when he looks in them. He only has the pictures of himself stuck up on the cork board to remember the shape of his eyes, his nose, his smile. He—his _ghost—_ is still wearing the jeans and white button down shirt he died in. He was ten when he died, he's still ten now, and he's going to be ten for—for—

For forever.

He's known on some level that Ed and Winry and all the other kids in town proper are growing up without him, and that Granny and all the other adults are growing older too. But he hadn't acknowledged—he hadn't _wanted_ to acknowledge—the fact that time no longer has any bearing on himself. He'd ignored the truth for as long as he could, but it's unavoidable now.

His big brother is growing up without him.

Alphonse knows he isn't intentionally being left behind. Ed still speaks of him in the present tense, his eyes flat coins, his mouth gaining a brittle curl, and he'd knocked out Rick Springer's tooth when Rick said his mom said it wasn't right not to have a funeral for Alphonse. If Ed knew Alphonse was right at his side every day since that night he'd be over the moon—but he _doesn't_. He _can't_ know. Nobody can, and Alphonse is being left behind all the same.

Standing there in the middle of the yard, Alphonse glimpses the dim, claustrophobic future that awaits him. Ed growing up and growing older, becoming some blurred combination of Dad and Uncle Yuriy in Alphonse's imagination; Winry growing up and growing older, becoming some blurred combination of Auntie Sara and Granny when she was young and violent; and Alphonse—the ten year old wisp trailing after their heels as they become world-famous in alchemy and engineering each, unseen and unheard and eventually barely spoken of at all for—

For forever.

He hugs himself and pretends he can feel warmth and pressure. For the first time since Ed declared his intentions of resurrecting him he hopes it's possible, he hopes there's a way he can hug his brother again, and be hugged in turn. He hopes to breathe, and eat, and sleep, and have conversations, and to have someone meet his eye when he says their name, and a hundred, a thousand, a _million_ other little things he can't experience anymore.

He _hopes_ , because the alternative is too lonesome to bear alone.

* * *

Today's the day. Today's the day Ed finally takes that train ticket and letter and instructions and leaves for the military—first to Eastern Headquarters to meet with now full Colonel Roy Mustang, then together on to Central Command where the State Alchemist exams are held. Ed's been making phone calls nearly everyday for three weeks to EHQ so Colonel Mustang or now First Lieutenant Hawkeye can fill out forms on his behalf to make the process that much smoother. All three of them seem convinced Ed's going to be a fully-fledged State Alchemist which says an awful lot for Ed's bravado, the Colonel's potentially-misplaced confidence, and the First Lieutenant's faith in that same confidence.

Or maybe it's just that easy to become a State Alchemist. Adults always go on and on about how difficult alchemy is and he and Ed have never understood that one either.

Granny had already said her goodbyes at the house, and Ed had squeaked when she'd pulled him into a fierce hug and demanded he be mindful, be careful, and to _call_ once in a blue moon. So it was just Winry—and Alphonse too, of course—who walked him down to the train station.

Ed, shortly before he'd summoned the courage to call the number Colonel Mustang had left, had given practical alchemy a whirl just to see where he stood with it. Despite the mountain of new and edited-and-recoded-so-completely-it-might-as-well-be-new research he's done, Ed hasn't touched an array with the intention to activate it since that night. And he still hasn't touched an array with the intention to activate it, never mind he's alchemized himself a new wardrobe to include an enormous cherry red overcoat with a flamel emblazoned across the back. It should be tantamount to heresy to start wearing Teacher's favored alchemical symbol without her permission, but it makes sense too. Ed can— _somehow_ —do alchemy just like Teacher can, by a simple clap of his hands alone.

For the thousandth time—the _ten_ thousandth time—Alphonse wishes he could remember what happened that night. Winry had asked once how Ed could do alchemy like that when he couldn't before. Ed's eyes had gained that bronze coin flatness and all traces of humor had been struck from his expression to be replaced with naked fear, and in a quiet, no-more-questions- _please_ voice he'd answered, "I just paid a toll, that's all." Winry had chosen not to pry, but Alphonse would have given _anything_ to know what Ed had meant.

Maybe Colonel Mustang won't settle for vagaries and caged non-answers. Maybe he'll order Ed to divulge every last ugly detail about that night and Alphonse will _finally_ get to know every last ugly detail too.

Of _course_ he's going with Ed. As if there was ever any doubt that Alphonse wouldn't cross that river of mud right along with him? Ed deserves to be whole again. Ed deserves to know Alphonse doesn't blame him for what happened (How could he, when the fault so clearly rests with him?). Ed deserves to be happy again. Alphonse can't split the research or the burden with him, but he can _be_ there for Ed. It isn't enough, not with Ed unable to _know_ he's with him, but it's the only thing he can do.

"You've got your oil? Your polishing rag? Spare screws?"

Ed makes a big show of rolling his eyes. " _You're_ the one who packed my maintenance kit, you tell me."

Winry huffs. "I'm just making sure. You're gonna be gone a long time."

"I'm comin' back after I get my certification," he replies. "S'just a couple weeks."

"But you're not _staying_."

"Course not. Not 'til I've brought him back. I'm just gonna pick up some stuff to bring back to the, barracks, or whatever. Take care of some stuff. You know."

Winry's frown deepens, but she doesn't say anything. She saw what Ed did to Rick Springer, and Ed's never been afraid of hitting girls.

(Alphonse is pretty sure Teacher's to blame for that.)

Ed hastily adds, "And I'll come back for maintenance too, y'know, if my leg breaks."

Alphonse winces. " _Idiot."_

"Are you _planning_ on breaking your leg?!"

"No! No no, I meant, just, it _might_ break! I dunno what they're gonna be making me do, I mean for all I know I'm gonna be marching a month straight before they even let me near any of their libraries."

Winry harrumphs. "Your birthday."

"Huh?"

"Come back for your birthday—with your leg _intact_ , okay?"

"I—I dunno if I'll be able—"

" _Okay?!"_

"Okay, okay! I will! Geez, you don't hafta _shriek_ at me."

Winry gives Ed a Look. Ed winces and mutters an apology. Winry finally deigns to forgive him, mollified.

Alphonse stands on Ed's other side, grinning. "You'd be lost without her," he tells him. Ed huffs and switches his suitcase to his left hand, swinging it through Alphonse's knees. What a _brat._

"Are you scared?" Winry asks quietly.

"Course not."

Ed's a terrible liar, but Winry never calls him out on it. That was always Al's job. Alphonse sticks his hand through Ed's neck as petty revenge for the lying and the suitcase. Ed shivers and rolls his shoulders, scowling.

"S'just gonna be different," he admits. "Be awhile before I get used to it."

Winry's eyes crinkle with a smile that doesn't quite touch her mouth. "You'll be great."

"So long as they let me do my own research I don't really care what they think of me."

"Mister Mustang seemed like a good man. I bet he'll make sure you get all the library time you need."

Ed grunts as the passenger car door finally slides open. "Time to g— _urk!"_

Winry practically strangles Ed in a hug, then shoves him toward the train. "Be careful! Write letters!"

Alphonse laughs when Ed scowls and stomps off without saying goodbye. "Don't mind him," he tells Winry. "He's got the emotional complexity of a tadpole. See you soon!"

Winry's scrubbing at her face to keep from crying too messily, so Alphonse dashes into the train after Ed without looking back. Inside Ed's taken a window seat at the back of the car, his suitcase pushed under his seat. Alphonse sits opposite him, beaming. "It's been a while since we've been on a train, huh? Not since we came home from Teacher's. We didn't get a chance to look around too much either way we came either. It will be interesting to see East and Central, won't it, Brother?"

Ed sighs distractedly, gaze following the rolling hills and shadowed mountains that cradle Resembool on all sides. He rubs his left thigh. When he presses, Alphonse can just make out the outline of the brace through his pants. "Not much longer," Alphonse promises. "I know you've got your heart set on bringing me back, but you've got to know I won't let you ignore your own body. You'll get your leg back too, with or without the Philosopher's Stone."

The door slides closed, the train shudders, the whistle wails, and then they're on their way at last. The first real step in Ed's plan is finally underway. Alphonse's grin widens when he sees the curl of a smile half-hidden behind Ed's hand. Ed doesn't smile nearly enough anymore; it's good to see him excited.

The town proper falls away, farmland stretching out across the hills like a patchwork quilt, the clear blue horizon interrupted by the steady up-down sweep of the telephone line, sunlight winking off the river and the windows of distant houses, white clusters of sheep bright as clouds against the grass waving in the wind. Alphonse is going to miss Resembool terribly, but they'll be back again in a couple weeks and again for Ed's maintenance and birthday, and Granny and Winry will be just a phone call away that he can eavesdrop in so long as Ed remembers to—

The world spins off its axis in a hard and startling _twist_ , sky and earth kaleidoscoping wildly, and Alphonse isn't corporeal enough to feel the impact of being wrenched by an invisible tether clear through the train to slam—he's not corporeal enough for inertia to send him skidding along either, apparently—into the train tracks. He isn't dizzy, he can't _be_ dizzy, but he's confused and terrified and _alone_.

"No," he croaks into the gravel. He has no breath to catch, his exhale doesn't send dirt ghosting across the wood under his cheek. He clambers to his hands and knees and watches the train carrying his brother, his _blood_ , away. "No!"

He jumps to his feet to run after it—who cares if it's a three-hour trip by train to East, he can't _get_ tired, he'll run the whole way—but hits an invisible wall and staggers back. There's no pain or pressure, just a surface tension his hand flattens against when he reaches out. He bolts left off the tracks, running his hands across the invisible wall until he trips through a wooden fence, then bolts back across the tracks again to find the same wall barring his way across the dirt road that stretches parallel. He drops his hands, trying not to panic, trying to make sense of this latest impossibility, trying to—

His gaze falls to the painted wooden sign set beside the road: _Now leaving Resembool._ It's hard not to, seeing as how he's standing halfway through it.

He stares after the fading stream of coal-smoke fading in the distance, Ed off on his grand adventure none the wiser to his own plight, and thinks that surely, _surely_ there must be a logical explanation to this.

* * *

In the two intervening weeks between Ed's departure and Ed's return, Alphonse scours the rolling hills of Resembool for a break in this barrier he can touch but can't see. In the thirteen days and seven hours without Ed, Alphonse combs the entirety of Resembool looking for a way _out_ and finds—

Nothing.

From the northern hills to the eastern ridges, from the southern slopes to the western forests; he hits nothing but that same invisible wall, dead end after dead end. He's fenced in. He's _trapped_. He compares the perimeter he mentally sketches out three different times _just in case_ he misses some lucky gap to the map at the train station and finds that Resembool's official boundaries are almost identical. He can't leave Resembool, not on his own steam, and there's no one he can ask for help or for an explanation because he's _dead_.

Despair drags him down, drags him _low_. He spends the second week away from town, away from Rockbell Automail, away from anyone who would look right through him and never see a shadow. He spends the days walking with his head down and arms wrapped tightly around himself, just walking, just _moving_ , just trying to get ahead of his own racing, circular, howling thoughts. By each nightfall he finds his way home, passing through the front door, going past the broken closet door Ed had transmuted crutches from, past the brown smears of old blood on the floorboards and walls, down the basement steps, down to their array and Mom's bloodstains and his clothes and Ed's shoe. He sinks into a corner with his head in his hands and his knees to his chest and he _shakes_ because this is it, isn't it? He's dead but not gone, he's a ghost, and every ghost story he and Ed ever heard says that ghosts are tied to the places they died.

So here he is. Here where he belongs. Down in this basement where no one will look for him because there's nothing but a pile of dusty, empty clothes to find.

One night, hours before dawn, he lifts his head again. His eyes find the black stain where Mom died with her neck broken and her ribs torn wide, and he croaks, "Mom?" Because if he's stuck here it would only make sense that she would be too, right?

But as before, as always, there's no answer. Eventually the sun rises, and he flees the basement before the black stains can gain color.

* * *

Alphonse keeps an eye on every train that comes to rest in Resembool station, keeps an eye out for a braid of sunflower yellow hair and a cherry red overcoat even when he's a miserable, shaking knot of self-pity. Or self-loathing. He can't decide. Thirteen days and seven hours after he hit an invisible wall that separated him from the rest of the world—and far more importantly, from _Ed_ —he hears the train's lonesome whistle and runs to a point where he can see the road that leads out of town and ends squarely at Rockbell Automail's front door. Thirteen days and seven hours of anxious hand-wringing and _what now, what do I do now_ s that go unanswered because no one can hear him, Ed comes home again.

Alphonse doesn't run when he spots a dot of bright red heading south out of town. He _sprints._

He's far enough away that he doesn't catch up until Ed's already on the last stretch, not all that far from where Alphonse had found him sobbing in the mud that night. It's a clear, sunny day though, a far cry from then, so he shoves the ugly memory away and focuses on the now. Ed's hunched a little like the wind whipping at his coat is chilly—and oh, of course it must be, it's October now, isn't it?

"Brother! I'd almost started to think you weren't coming back after all! It's been awful without you here, honestly I don't think you realize how boring it is without you getting into things that I have to bail you out of. I tried to come with you, really I did, but I can't leave Resembool for some reason. I've tried everything—or at least, I feel like I have? But you've always been better at thinking outside of the box—or, no, we're both good at it, but you're never _cautious_ about it so you're quicker at it. I hope you're planning on storing all your research at the house so I can get a glimpse at it now and then. You should really pick up a habit of talking to yourself, or leaving your notes out long enough that I can finally break the code, and anyway you're so impatient you never triple-check your work even though you _know_ you should. I always did it for you but I can't now, obviously. You're going to have to bribe Winry into doing it for you instead because it's not like anyway else here can keep up with you—"

Ed hears none of this or anything else Alphonse eagerly chatters at him, but Alphonse can't find it in himself to care. Ed's _back,_ he survived whatever tests the military threw at him, and most importantly, he still looks as determined as he had when he left thirteen days and seven hours ago. If he'd failed to earn his certification, or had been turned away, or _something,_ Ed would have been—not _shattered,_ no. Alphonse doesn't think Ed would sink back down into the limp, wordless misery of just after that night, but he would still... fracture. Ed's spent the past year pushing himself to the brink after losing everything they'd worked towards together. He's hung his last hope on this one chance Colonel Mustang offered him and refused to consider a single saner alternative. If Ed had failed to become a State Alchemist, well...

Well, Alphonse isn't sure Ed would have come _back._

But Ed _has_ , and when the wind whips his coat again sunlight catches on a silver chain at his hip that hadn't been there before. It can only be a real, actual State Alchemist's pocket watch. Alphonse _whoops_ and punches the air when he sees it; not because he's glad Ed's convinced himself that this is the only path left to him, but that he succeeded at something so difficult on his own steam. It's a step in the right direction. Winry gave him a new leg that Alphonse's failure cost him, and he's learning to keep moving forward on it.

Ed grins when Den races down to greet him, barking as he trots eager circles around Ed's legs and doing his damnedest to sniff every inch of Ed at once. "You missed him too, huh boy?" Alphonse asks, laughing, and Den barks again, startled, but his tail blurs a little faster. It's nice to know Den missed his voice too.

"Heya mutt," Ed says quietly, scratching Den behind one ear once he's calmed down some.

Alphonse follows them into Rockbell Automail, stands out of everyone's way with a pleased smile as Winry shrieks, "You said you'd call before you came home!" He laughs again when she pulls Ed, squawking, into a rib-cracking hug. He watches Granny come out of the work room with her pipe between her teeth as she wipes her hands with an oil-stained rag. She's more restrained in the hug she gives Ed, but no less glad to see him.

"Well then," she says once she's let him go. "Let's see that new leash of yours."

Ed blinks. "How'd you know I passed?"

She smirks. "They would have been stupid not to. And we do get the Times out here, you know."

"The Times...?"

Winry slaps Ed's back as she shoves a piece of cream-colored card stock in his face. "Don't let it go to your head or anything, but _you_ made the front page."

Alphonse peers around Ed's other shoulder, ignoring a pang of irritation with himself. He would have _known_ Ed had made it days ago if he hadn't been off sulking. Anyway. Glued to the card stock is a clipping from Central Times, not the top story but a smaller column declaring **YOUNGEST STATE ALCHEMIST CERTIFIED AT 12!** There's a picture and everything, a little blurry, but it's definitely of Ed walking between two soldiers; probably Colonel Mustang and First Lieutenant Hawkeye.

Ed snatches it out of Winry's hands to skim the article, then laughs, bright and surprised. _"'The previous record for youngest State Alchemist was held by Flame Alchemist Colonel Roy Mustang, who was certified in 1905 at 20 years old.'_ That bastard! He didn't even say anything!"

"Flame Alchemist?" Alphonse wonders aloud. Luckily Winry wrinkles her nose and asks the same thing.

"Oh," Ed says, handing back the clipping to shuck off his overcoat. It's gratifying to see that Ed still has to stand on tiptoe to hang it on the coat rack despite his growth spurt. "State Alchemists are all assigned titles by Fuhrer Bradley—he was at my practical examination, actually. I think that's what made him pick mine."

"What is it?" Winry asks.

"Fullmetal."

Granny tuts. "What did you do to earn such a dramatic title as that?"

Ed's answering chuckle is suspiciously nervous, not helped in the least by his sudden interest in scratching Den around the harness of his automail. "I, uh, might have tried to assassinate him."

Winry drops the clipping, Granny nearly drops her pipe, and Alphonse slaps his hand to his forehead. "You're joking," all three of them plead.

"I wasn't actually trying to kill him!" Ed protests hastily.

"Oh good, for a moment there I was worried," Granny says. Ed glares.

"I was _trying_ to make a point that it's not a good idea to have VIPs around when they haven't finished vetting the alchemists they're examining!"

Winry snatches up the newspaper clipping, looking like she's tempted to beat Ed around the ears with it. "And they didn't clap you in irons? Put you in front of a firing squad? Draw and quarter you?"

Ed makes a face. "Do I _look_ drawn and quartered? I mean—okay, yeah, they were pissed at me, but I think that was for how close I got and for making 'em look bad. The Fuhrer seemed like he thought it was pretty funny though, and anyway he's _ridiculously_ fast. I didn't even see him draw his sword before he broke my spear."

Alphonse groans. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Granny seems to be thinking along the same lines. "You've got the Devil's own luck, Ed. Bradley never struck me as a man with a _good_ sense of humor." She breathes out a plume of smoke. "But never mind that. Go on and put your things in your room. Have you eaten yet?"

Ed shrugs, grins. "I could eat again."

"How long are you staying?" Winry asks.

"Just 'til the next train comes in, so two nights. I've got a _stack_ of paperwork I have to fill out to be in-processed or gained or whatever at Eastern Headquarters." He says it so calmly. He says it like coming home just to _visit_ is already old habit. He says it exactly how Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy would say _It's just two weeks, Win sweetie, don't cry, be a big girl and listen to your grandmother,_ like how going out to Ishval for longer and longer periods became normal and worse, _expected,_ right up until they—

Alphonse reels, tripping over his own feet to escape this brightly lit house full of laughter and easy banter and a table set for three. They've moved on, all of them, even Ed even though he's trying so, so hard not to. They miss him, but they don't expect to _see_ him again, and how could they? How can they, when he's dead? He can't stay here. He can't be out there in the wide world with Ed—he can't bear to watch Ed go again. He just _can't._

He spends the night down in their basement again, in the dark and quiet stillness, in the one place left to him in Resembool that no living person would willingly go to, least of all his brother.

* * *

In the morning, Alphonse comes up out of the basement to watch the sun rise. Not long after, he sees a bright red dot making its way down to town on its own. He catches up with Ed in time to see him disappear into the florist's, and he passes through the bright yellow door with its stained-glass windowpane in time to watch Ed pick out a bouquet of Mom's favorite flowers. Mrs. Caddeo smiles too gently and talks down to Ed like he's six years old instead of twelve. She doesn't mean anything by it, not really; no one who talks down to Ed or about Ed like this—like he's fragile, like he's delicate, like he's pitiful—ever means any _harm_ by it. But they still pity Ed, and Alphonse can see how it _rankles_ him to be thought of being coddled so he won't make a scene.

Mrs. Caddeo tries to give Ed the flowers for free but he insists on paying, and as she wraps them up in crinkly white paper she says Ed and his fancy State Alchemist certification are the talk of the town, and Ed gives her a shy smile and goes a little pink in the face right up until she says, "Your mother and brother would be so proud of you," and Ed—

— _stills._ His smile turns brittle, his eyes harden, his knuckles burn white against the wooden counter. All at once he loses his soft edges and he really does look—fractured. Half-cracked. As around the bend as Winry and Granny worry he's going when he's made a fortress out of Dad's books and his coded notes in the middle of the floor again. Ed _does_ look fragile, in this broken glass, red-edged and raw kind of way. He looks scared. He looks _scary._

Too late, Mrs. Caddeo seems to realize her mistake. No one but Winry and Granny know what happened that night, and only Ed knows the full details. No one in town knows what they tried to do, only that on that night, the night of the terrible storm, Ed lost his leg and Alphonse was just—lost. People assume all kinds of things, but everyone's too scared of Granny to pester Ed with anything worse than this sickening stream of pity and hand-wringing.

"I'm sorry," she stammers—still too gently, but at least her voice has lost that insipid, _insulting_ good cheer. "Edward, I shouldn't have—"

"It's fine," Ed bites out coldly. "Keep the change."

And he's out the door with flowers in hand, the door banging shut behind him. Alphonse stays behind long enough to level a withering look at her. She can't see it, of course, but it makes him feel better all the same.

Ed's legs are longer than Alphonse's now, but one of them is disproportionately heavy and anyway, Alphonse can't _get_ tired. He catches up long before Ed makes it to the cemetery. He stands beside Ed at Mom's grave—her first one, the only one anybody but Alphonse and Granny knows about. Ed stands rigid. Ed stands like something sharp and biting has tangled itself up in his ribs. Ed stands dry of eye, staring at Mom's headstone and not seeing it at all. The paper wrapping crumples in his fist.

"Breathe, Brother," Alphonse tells him quietly. Ed can't hear him, but after a long, long time he calms down of his own accord. He kneels, lays the flowers down with care, and claps his hands. When the light of his transmutation fades the bouquet has become a wreath. He adjusts its placement against the headstone, breathes, stands up again. Yesterday's rough autumn wind has died down today; it's so quiet out here that Alphonse can hear the whir and click of Ed's knee.

Ed rests his hand on Mom's gravestone a moment more, takes a steadying breath, then begins the long trek back to Rockbell Automail.

* * *

Dinner that night is strangely subdued. Alphonse wonders aloud if Ed and Winry had another fight after he'd run off yesterday. Den thumps his tail loudly against a table leg, but that doesn't really clear up much.

Once everything's been washed up the three of them all don coats and Winry lights the big lantern and Ed collects an armful of kindling from the woodpile while Granny waits by the front door. Alphonse asks what they're doing but—of course—gets no reply. Den whines, and Winry tells him to stay put as she shuts the door, the last of them to leave the house.

Alphonse's suspicions about _where_ they're going are confirmed as soon as they cross the little bridge over the river, but he doesn't understand _why._ Outside of their unlit house Ed stops, dropping the pile of kindling at his feet so he can brace his hands against the white picket fence. Weeds have overtaken Mom's garden; dead leaves lay in wind-scattered piles on the browning grass.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Granny asks softly. She always knows the exact degree of gentleness to use when speaking to Ed—or anybody really—of unpleasant things. She never condescends, she never belittles, she never pities. She's soft with Ed because she's grieving right along with him.

"Yeah," Ed says. "Just—stay out here, okay? I want to... before I..."

"Sure," Winry says, and she speaks in the exactly right degree of gentleness too.

Ed lets go of the fence. He picks up most of the kindling he'd brought, takes the lantern from Winry, and shoulders his way through the front door. He leaves it wide open, striding past the broken closet, down the bloodstained hall, going straight to the kitchen to drop the kindling on the dining table. Alphonse is barely a step behind him, and they look as one down to the same spot on the kitchen floor—like they'd done a hundred times, a thousand times before—where they'd found Mom collapsed. Ed's throat clicks when he swallows. He sets his shoulders and walks over the spot.

Alphonse follows him from room to room, the lantern light casting warm yellows and deep blacks where he's grown used to seeing uniform grays. Ed lingers here and there, sometimes reaching out to rest his fingertips against something, sometimes hovering them over whatever caught his eye instead. He opens every window, draws open every curtain. The last place he lingers—the longest place he lingers—is at the top of the basement stairs.

"Don't," Alphonse begs. "Don't go down there. You've punished yourself enough. Whatever you're doing here tonight—please, Brother, just walk away."

Ed can't hear him though. He goes down, and Alphonse does the only thing he can: he follows after.

Alphonse has long since memorized the basement and dried horrors couched here by dim shadow and moonlight alone, but this is the first time Ed's stepped foot down here since he still had two real feet and a little brother that hadn't yet failed him so completely. Ed makes it one step farther than Winry did. His boots ring out on the concrete as he stops. The lantern shakes so badly in his grip that he quickly sets it down before he can drop it, then he hugs his middle and stares out across their bloodstained array. Ed ages a year for every minute he stands there until he seems as bowed and wizened as Granny did, kneeling in the mud of Mom's second grave. Ed's automail rattles against itself, sounding like a coffee tin full of spare nuts and bolts. He forces one foot forward, and another, and another, skirting his own old bloodstain smeared by a child's pain and panic. He sinks to his knees before Alphonse's empty, dusty clothes. The left one _clunks;_ the right one _thuds._

For a long, long time, Ed stays there. Then something in him—something as invisible to Alphonse as Alphonse is to everyone else— _breaks_. All at once Ed's eyes brim over with tears. All at once Ed is _crying,_ choking on sobs he tries so hard not to voice. Ed scrubs at his face as if he can claw the tears out of his eyes faster, as if he can get over himself faster, as if there's any shame to be caught grieving here of all places.

Alphonse reaches for him but of course, _of course,_ his hand only passes through Ed's shoulder—as it always does, as it always will. Ed hiccups though, shivering, and the chill seems to—not calm him, but center him. He leans back on his heels and forces himself to take deep, even breaths so he can winch himself under control again, like forcing a leaky spigot that extra half turn so it doesn't drip. Alphonse almost feels an echo of pain somewhere in the space between where his heart and stomach once sat just watching his brother, helpless to help at all.

"I'm sorry," Ed rasps. "Mom. _Al—"_

His voice cracks. He breathes, scrubs at his face again, then clambers to his feet and up the stairs again before Alphonse can recover from his own shock. That—

That had been the first time he's heard Ed say his name out loud since that night.

Ed comes back with one of the sticks of kindling, opening up the lantern to light one end of it. Then he finds the three small oil lamps they'd had lit down here and _smashes_ them with startling violence. One on the tables; one on the wooden crates; one against a bookshelf emptied of all but three old books by Winry months ago. Then Ed sets the lit kindling to each splash of oil, igniting them with a shocking _whoomph_ of hungry fire.

Alphonse isn't struck dumb; he's struck _stupid._ "What—what are you _doing?!"_

Ed, of course, can't hear him no matter how loudly he begs Ed for an explanation, for Ed to stop, to put that out, Brother, please—

Room by room again, moving swiftly now. Ed lights kindling and sets fire to anything that will easily catch. Papers, curtains, bed sheets, and more smashed lanterns too. Room by room Alphonse claws through Ed and begs him to stop, but if Ed can feel the chill of his ghost he ignores it, jaw set and red-rimmed eyes hard and unseeing.

Ed rejoins Winry and Granny outside once he's done. They've drawn back as the flames begin to lick out of the open windows. Ed finishes off the rest of the kindling, darting dangerously close and tossing lit sticks through open windows until he's run out, and he finishes it all off by pitching Granny's lantern down the entry hall with a strangled cry.

At the end of it, as their house becomes one enormous bonfire that's surely going to draw every single person in town within the hour, Ed staggers out of harm's way. He's breathing raggedly, smudged with soot and hair coming out of its braid. Winry takes a step toward him but Granny holds her back, shaking her head wordlessly. Ed pulls out his new pocket watch, gripping it tightly. The surging fire stain Ed's eyes and the Fuhrer's crest flickering shades of orange. Alphonse falls quiet at last, feeling as wrung out as Ed looks. He's just near enough to hear Ed speak over the rush and roar of their home collapsing in on itself.

"No turning back now," Ed says, and Alphonse—

—understands.

* * *

 _I have two more chapters planned, a part two and an epilogue, though considering it took me almost seventeen thousand words to burn Ed's house down I can't be sure how long it will take me to get them out. These boys are gonna have a happy ending if it kills me though!_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Remember how I said there were going to be two parts and an epilogue? Just kidding, I have no idea what I'm doing but I sure am having fun doing it. \o/ Here's almost 19k for you all. Thank you for the reviews and favorites, they mean the world to me._

* * *

Another year, another visit for maintenance. Ed's reliable in this at least; he breaks his automail as if he needs an excuse to visit the only family he's got left.

"Limping again? You're really starting the new year off with a bang, aren't you?"

Ed, of course, doesn't react, but it's 1914 now. Alphonse has long since grown used to being ignored. Still, he wants _something,_ so he reaches over and sticks an arm through his brother's side. He's rewarded with a shiver, a sharp hiss of pain, and Ed's hand jumping to his ribs. He almost feels guilty for a moment—the limp might not be just a mechanical fault after all—but he shrugs it off. He's learned to ignore that old pain as a matter of self-preservation.

"Lousy goddamn drunk," Ed growls to himself, dropping his hand and picking up the pace again. So that narrows down the list of causes running through Alphonse's head. An accident, more than likely. He wonders if any of Ed's ribs are broken.

"It's your own fault," he tells Ed airily as they walk up the hill to Rockbell Automail. "You're too reckless. If you're not going to bother looking both ways before you cross the street, you have to face the consequences. And that's nothing to say of how often you come limping back after a mission either. Face it, Brother; at the rate you're going, you're gonna be one skinny streak of scar tissue before you're twenty."

He's only being honest, after all. The years since that night haven't been kind to Ed—or perhaps it's more honest to say that Ed hasn't been kind to _himself._ He's picked up a habit of high collared jackets and gloves to hide the worst of it—always black, the only thing he ever wears that isn't black is that flashy red overcoat. He can't hide the scar on his chin that needed nine stitches (Alphonse had counted, appalled), his crooked nose, or the ever-present shadows under his staring eyes. In photographs or in person Ed always looks haunted, and Alphonse could just _laugh._

"You're useless on your own," he tells Ed, because it's true, and because no one can admonish him for being petty. What's the sense in being polite, in holding back, when no one can hear you? If he doesn't look at Ed's face on the way up he can't see it tighten with pain. He shouldn't have to convince himself not to feel guilty. It's not like he could have done anything to stop it.

* * *

Winry, bless her, can do all the shouting at Ed he can't. She's his favorite.

"Were you hit by a car?!"

Ed scowls, slapping her hand away from the raw scrape across his cheek. "A _truck,_ actually. And before you start—" She scoffs loudly, but he barrels on before she can get another snide word in. "—it wasn't my fuckin' fault. The asshole was drunk."

She raises an unimpressed eyebrow. "You usually have better reflexes than the average drunk asshole."

He shoves past her, limping down the hall to his room. Winry follows a step behind. "Yeah, well, wasn't like I was expecting him to jump the goddamn curb, now was I?"

"Hmph. You _did_ go to the hospital, right?"

"Course I did, I'm not an idiot—"

"You sure as hell act like one most of the time. Stubborn as a _mule—"_

He shoulders his bedroom door open. There's a dent in the wall from the doorknob banging off it he quit repairing with alchemy ages ago. "—and I'm _fine,_ thanks for asking. Now can you get off my back so I can change?"

"What? You just got here, why don't you relax for a little while?"

"Next train's in two days and unless that asshole really fucked my leg up I plan on being on that train. I don't want to be here any longer than necessary."

"God, Ed, do you have to make it sound like it so horrible to come home now and then? I can't remember the last time we didn't see you beat to hell."

"What do you care? I'm your best customer."

Winry throws her hands up in defeat. "Oh, for—! I don't know why I even bother sometimes."

"Me neither. Now get _out."_

Ed slams the door, bracing against it in case Winry tries to jimmy it open. There's a loud bang that sounds like she gives it a solid kick on principle, but then she huffs and stomps off down the hall. Ed remains tense a few seconds longer, then _sinks_ against the door with another hiss of pain. His breath hitches, his eyes scrunch tight, he bares his clenched teeth in a snarl he doesn't allow himself to voice.

Alphonse watches this display of pain curiously. He can't quite remember what pain felt like anymore. It's one of those intimate details of life—of living, of being

that slipped away when he wasn't paying attention. He looks at his hands, reviews the scars that he died with, that will be with him forever. If he concentrates he can remember being hurt—a finger broken while sparring, bruises, scraped knees, a time he burned his hand on the stove. There's a pink scratch on the back of his left hand—from a cat, probably. An older sun-kissed scar on his right wrist—that one's from Yock Island. White twists across three knuckles—the eventual wear and tear of sparring everyday with Ed.

He can remember being hurt, he can remember the shock that came with being hurt, but the actual _pain_ eludes him. It's like trying to remember what hunger or thirst were like; he remembers that these things were unpleasant, but the acuteness of them, the visceral concern... it's beyond him now.

So he watches the living. He reflects on the care they take to avoid unnecessary pain. He watches Ed cross the bedroom with the same hesitant, wrong-legged walk of a praying mantis creeping along a garden wall. Ed limps to the bed like he doesn't trust his automail or his balance or the floorboards or _gravity._ He drops the suitcase to the mattress, eases out of his overcoat, pulls off his gloves, pauses. He breathes. He grits his teeth. He unclasps his jacket, tugging it off one sleeve at a time. His black shirt is last. He only uses his right arm to pull it over his head, holding out the left like he's trying hard not to jar it—

Alphonse sighs. "Oh, Brother."

Ed's whole left side is a patchwork mess of deep purple bruises, only just beginning to green at the edges. His ribs stand out starkly where the bruising skips across the bones. His left arm is just as battered, and the ginger way he moves it must mean it's a miracle he didn't need a cast. God, did he go under the wheels of the truck? If he didn't make it habit to wear so many layers, how torn up would he be otherwise?

At least it's unlikely he's earned himself any _more_ scars this time.

Alphonse winces normally whenever he sees Ed undressed. He's too skinny, never mind he eats like it's a competition he intends to win whenever he's in Resembool. But it's not just the jut of his ribs that makes Alphonse worry (Don't military bases have cafeterias? Doesn't anyone pull Ed away from his research to make sure he eats regularly?). It's his _damage._

Ed is a _good_ fighter, there's no question of that. But he's hot-headed, he never watches his back, and he doesn't know how to defuse a bad situation before it can come to blows. He fights too much, too often. It's obvious. One look at him without a shirt on is enough to know Ed's in over his head more often than not. These marks on him, all over him, down his arms and across his back, his ribs, marring all the places he'd left himself open to a knife or knuckle dusters or debris or who-knows what else—these marks tell the stories Ed refuses to. They tell of the victories that came at a cost.

The easy wins, the times Ed walked away with nothing more than another headline in Central Times exulting the People's Alchemist, leave no marks that Alphonse can measure easily. There's only the cracks in the brutal, foul-mouthed front he puts up. Every time he comes back to Resembool he's fractured a little more in this broken glass, red-edged raw kind of way that never leaves his frantic, unblinking stare.

Alphonse stands by the bookshelf that bends quietly beneath the weight of all the books Winry collected from their house one armful at a time during Ed's rehabilitation. His forced dismissal of Ed's pain falters here behind the privacy of a locked door, in the quiet spells where Ed has no audience to put a front on for. Here, in this room that's the closest thing Ed has left to a home, Ed's just a kid again; alone, lonely, hurting.

It's obvious that Ed is always scared these days. More and more, Ed is _scary_ too.

He watches Ed toe his boots off, undo his belt, shimmy out of his trousers. He watches Ed pull on a pair of workout shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. He hears Ed's breath hitch; he tries not to wince along with him, feels guilty for the need of it, forces his useless hands to remain at his sides. He watches Ed tiptoe around the edges of his pain. His leg is as damaged as the rest of him; the knee doesn't bend as it should and the shin plate, when he pulls it out of his suitcase, is warped enough to look as if it had been sheared off its bolts.

"Does it hurt to walk?" Alphonse asks. "Or is the limp only because it's broken?"

Even if Ed could hear him he doubts he'd get a straight answer. It's not like he ever gives Winry one after all, and she's the one who built his leg. Ed ought to realize by now that he does more harm than good by being cagey about how the automail feels or operates. Winry doesn't need to be coddled; she needs accurate data to keep him on two strong legs.

Oh well. Winry's smart—a hell of a lot smarter than Ed, though whether Ed will ever realize that or not is a different story. She'll see the bruises on his other leg and make him do laps around the yard to gauge the damage by eye if he won't tell her outright. Stubborn mules, the pair of them.

"It's good to see you," Alphonse says quietly.

* * *

The thing is, it _should_ be good to see Ed. It _should_ be good to see his brother with his own eyes, to know for sure Ed's survived the latest wild story that's made headlines and busted his leg again. But it isn't. These short trips for maintenance only emphasize the years that separate them now. Alphonse has watched Ed grow up in spurts, like a badly edited film reel. Despite how Winry and Granny tease, Ed _is_ growing. He's more than a foot taller than Alphonse now. He never cuts his hair, just braids it back and shakes his bangs irritably out of his eyes. It falls nearly halfway down his back now when he lets it down. He's put on muscle, gone wiry and lean, gotten strong enough by necessity to handle whatever madmen he meets on the missions he's sent on. But he's only fifteen. He's got years of growing up left to do, but he acts like he's already checked the whole untidy affair of puberty off his to-do list.

"Shut up and eat," is a common retort out of Granny whenever Ed visits. She worries about him too. Ed's face always reminds Alphonse of Yock Island; of being too weak to defend themselves against Mason, of Ed being so out of his mind with hunger he thought a line of ants looked like fancy chocolates. He's glad Granny glowers at Ed until he's cleared his plate at least twice.

It hurts—in a manner of speaking—to see Ed when he comes home again. Fracturing day by day, too skittish to linger, dooming himself to break down far from the rolling hills of the childhood he shelved after that terrible night.

Being a State Alchemist is going to get Ed killed one day, Alphonse is sure of it. Each time the radio blares praises for the Fullmetal Alchemist a part of him expects Ed to come home in a pine box with the Amestrian flag draped over it like an apology. Tommy Granger was buried like that last year, just a couple weeks before Ed came back for maintenance with a mostly healed burn all down his right forearm he refused to say anything about. Tommy Granger, who used to sleepwalk in unhurried circles in the market, who told the pair of them off for wandering around in the middle of the night, who used to send money home to his mom every month. Tommy Granger was killed in some skirmish a hundred miles away and all Mrs. Granger got for it was a pretty medal to hang on the wall beside Tommy's boot camp graduation picture.

That could be Ed one day. Buried too young beside Mom's first grave, with his pocket watch and some letter that goes on out about "services rendered in defense of our nation" given to Winry and Granny because there's no one else left. If Ed dies maybe Granny will use the money they'll give to finally give Alphonse a headstone too. An empty grave is better than nothing. Sometimes he wonders if Granny would be morbid enough to take a photograph to add to the corkboard in the kitchen. The family Elric; deceased.

It hurts too, to see the way Winry flinches whenever Ed snaps out something ugly and barbed so she'll leave him alone. Alphonse doesn't get why Ed's so intent on pushing Winry away, especially after all the things the other kids their age have said about the both of them. She's always bruised easier than Ed, has always taken the cruelty of others to heart. Ed makes an effort to salt the half-healed hurts Winry picks at on her own when Ed is far away risking his life for some half-cracked cause (Just like her parents, and why doesn't Ed ever realize _that's_ why Winry worries?). He stomps off to sulk and leaves Winry with the piece of him he's dumped in her lap again with barely more than an apologetic trinket to bribe her with and a, "Sorry, thanks, wasn't my fault, put that down _holy shit—"_

But the thing is, Ed's kind of an idiot. He bristles and bares his teeth and calls her names and thinks she's _stupid_ for caring about him, but Winry's brilliant. She's twice as smart as the two of them ever were together and she sees right through the worst Ed ever slings at her. Yeah, it still hurts her. Yeah, Ed's upset her to tears more than once. But Winry is something Ed isn't. She's adaptable. Ed is steadfast and unyielding; he draws his line in the sand and _demands_ the world meet his expectations (and fractures a little more every time it doesn't). Winry takes the hits the world throws, turns the other cheek for another, and no one—especially his _idiot_ brother—ever thinks to pay any attention to that throwing arm of hers.

Ed's turned vicious over the years, it's true. But Winry gives as good as she gets, firing Ed up and kicking him when he's down and belittling him to the point where Ed's only option is to go hide up a tree until dinner, spare leg or no. _Bickering_ is too kind a word for the fights they get into all up and down and around Rockbell Automail. They scream. They push and pull and hit. They've gotten _mean_ with each other, and no matter how many times he sees these fights break out Alphonse just can't understand it. It's just the three of them left, Ed and Winry and Granny, and Granny won't be around forever. They're the only family they have, so why are they so intent on tearing each other apart?

He knows they can't hear him—he knows, he knows, he _knows—_ but he still can't help but try and stop them when they get like this. It isn't right, to hurt each other like this. Ed's not even been back a day and they're at each other's throats. As far as he can tell it started with elbows on the table and an innocuous comment about being raised in a barn, and now somehow it's escalated to insulting each other's dead mothers, never mind how much that hurts themselves just as much as it does each other.

 _"Stop,"_ he shouts. "Would you two stop! You were both raised better than this, what the hell's the matter with you?"

He makes a grab for Ed's wrist, trying in vain to hold him back. Ed shivers bodily when his hands passes through him, snarling out, "—and I hate being _stuck_ in this drafty goddamn house for that matter!"

Alphonse turns to Granny, begging, "Do something."

Granny's mouth has gone thin and pinched again, the way Alphonse has learned means she's at a loss for how to rein these two in. Worse still, it means she's disappointed. _"Enough," s_ he barks, startling them both. Ed's got a lock of Winry's hair in his fist and she's shoved him up against a wall, purposefully pressing on all the bruises Ed's pretending don't exist. They blink at Granny like they'd forgotten she was still in the room. "Not in the house," Granny says, voice sharp as a slap. Even Alphonse shies back a little. "Our three o'clock is due any minute. Winry, try and make yourself presentable for company. And Ed?"

Ed scowls. "Yeah?"

"I'm sure you've got better things to occupy yourself with than trying to scalp my granddaughter?"

"I wasn't—!"

The glare she levels over her glasses could curdle milk. Ed's an idiot, but he's at least smart enough to duck his head in an apology he's too stubborn to voice. "...Sure, yeah."

He shoulders past Winry to beat a hasty retreat to his room, slamming the door hard enough to rattle pictures on the wall. Winry opens her mouth, no doubt to shout something nasty after him, but Granny puts a stop to it. "I said that's enough!"

"But he—!"

"Has a lot on his mind, as well you know."

Winry chews on her lip, glaring down the hall. "He doesn't have to take it out on us."

Granny puts on a smile that doesn't fool Alphonse for a second. "Who else is there?"

Den starts barking out in the yard; their three o'clock has arrived right on time.

* * *

Two days later Ed's on the train bound for East City just like he wanted, a whirlwind that comes and goes and never says thank you for all trouble. Normalcy is restored.

In the years since Ed burned their house down, Alphonse has had to find ways to keep himself distracted. He spends his days wandering; always moving, always restless, always wanting _more._ He's been bored for so long he can't remember what it's like to be satisfied with sleepy mornings or sun-soaked afternoons, of finding peace in the still hours. He spent the ten short years of his life making as much use of his waking moments as he could, working towards the day he and Ed could finally get their lives back on track once Mom was alive again. Now? Now he can't so much as doodle on a piece of scrap paper because he isn't _real_ enough to touch anything.

There are only about a thousand people in Resembool, mostly clustered together in the town proper. He didn't know all of them by name before he died, but he could recognize most of them in that absent, automatic way the human mind categorizes people after you've seen them enough times. But he died years ago now. His life ended in bloodshed and ruin, and all of the distractions of his life have been excised from him. All that's left is an unflinching eye for detail and a restlessness impossible to sate. The people here are his only entertainment, and in the years since Ed earned his pocket watch he's learned to love them all for a hundred different reasons, a thousand, for far more than he could ever quantify.

He's learned the names of every single person, the complexities of their family trees and the intricacies of their social circles, their favorite candies, their least favorite chores. He knows the gossip mongers from the shut-ins, the hard working and the frenzied from the lazy and the slovenly. He'll chose someone to follow for days on end, memorizing the way they speak with their hands as much as the tone of their voices, all they ways they'll laugh, who they avoid and who they seek out gladly. He memorized their lives, from the celebrations to the inanities to the pitfalls, and loves them for every moment they shine.

He watches families rise for each day, house by house, room by room. Siblings and only children, toddlers and kids and teens, all loud laughter and roughhousing and first times for everything. Young mothers and old wives, young fathers and old husbands. Spouses who hold hands over their morning coffee. Spouses who put on a front of a loving marriage but sleep in separate bedrooms and never speak to one another otherwise. Grandparents who outlived their spouses once, twice, three times, sitting alone on their narrow beds and looking at their wizened hands with weary astonishment. The handful of MPs in the cramped barracks on the east side of town, with the sour-faced lieutenant stuck in command of old sergeants who look down their noses at this would-be hard-charger. He watches people stumble out of bed, yawning unabashedly wide, scratching and picking at themselves in bathroom mirrors, holding quiet conversations over breakfast, making to-do lists to check off another day of their lives.

He loves them all, from the oldest (Cadogan Pugh, who's going to be 103 this September, who still speaks with thick accent of his home country though he immigrated to Amestris when he was 26) to the youngest (Lorena Rudaski, only three weeks old; Alphonse had been there when her mother had named her). He has to love them because the alternative is too ugly to consider; how could he dare envy any of them? He died because of his own choices, his own mistakes. He has to love them because they can do all the things he no longer can. He watches them cook and clean, eat and sleep. He reads over their shoulders, devouring newspapers and trashy dime store novels and medical textbooks and personal diaries without bias. He walks through storefronts and sitting rooms, barns and bathrooms, eager always to listen in to any idle conversation or hushed argument. Sometimes he does walk in on something people wouldn't want anyone else to see, let alone a ten year old boy. But he doesn't mind, not really, and a little embarrassment now and then keeps things lively—in a manner of speaking, any way.

Resembool is a little town, reluctant to change. Granny's photographs of fifty years past show a town nearly unchanged. Just the people change. Faces, fashions, the brikabrak inside each home. The day-to-day drudgery blurs and crystallizes to his eyes. Kids go to school, farmers tend to their fields, mail is sorted, coffee made, rips mended. So it goes.

He learns the little things adults do to keep their chins up when they have to put on a good face for their neighbors. He learns how low people can be brought by personal demons as invisible to him as he is to them. He learns who needs a touch at the elbow to remind them that it's alright to take breaks, and who needs that touch but has no one there to do it. He chills their hands until they grumble and fetch a fresh cup of coffee, and he smiles to himself for a job well-done.

The people almost make his loneliness bearable.

* * *

Of course, there's more to find than people in Resembool.

"Good morning, Mister Tafano," Alphonse calls out on his way past the post office.

"Graaaaaagh," Mr. Tafano replies.

To be fair, Alphonse doesn't think Mr. Tafano ever spoke Amestrian when he was still alive. He's fairly sure the other ghost was a native of whatever country claimed this valley before Amestris came along. The few words he can coax the man to grumble sound a little like they might be Aerugan, or at least a near dialect of it. It's difficult to tell if it's the language barrier or a simple lack of inclination that leaves Mr. Tafano a slouched and snarling thing curled up in the roots of the oldest tree in town proper. It took Alphonse four months just to learn his name, and he hasn't gotten much more out of him since.

In retrospect he's a bit embarrassed by how much shouting he did back then. But back then, just days after Ed burned their house down, he hadn't _known_ about the other ghosts of Resembool. In the year of Ed's rehabilitation he never left Ed's side, barely going beyond the hill Rockbell Automail is perched on. He'd shied away from town, from people who would walk right through him and tug at their jackets against the chill. He spent the days clawing at the invisible wall that stands between him and the rest of the world—and far more importantly, from _Ed—_ and the nights at the edge of the burnt-down ruins of their house. He avoided Winry and Granny, sunk lower and lower into his own misery until...

Well, until the day he didn't hurry through town quite so fast as he usually did, and he looked up and saw a monster looking back.

Alphonse once thought time couldn't touch him anymore. Mr. Tafano and all the others have since taught him otherwise. Time, in its own way, wears all things down to dust and less than dust. People die and their bodies decompose quietly in boxes beneath the earth, but ghosts are torn apart one papery layer at a time until there's nothing but a shadow left of the people they once were.

Mr. Tafano must have died at least three centuries to go, and every year of it shows. There's no telling what he used to look like, if he'd been fat or thin, brown-skinned or pale, dressed richly or in rags. Now he's a red-eyed, skeletal, toothsome thing that growls like an ill-tempered dog at the living that can't hear him. Still, he's not all bad. He's content enough to let Alphonse spend a few hours with him now and then. He won't say much, and if he does speak at all it's gibberish to Alphonse, but they'll sit together in the shade of the old oak tree, watching the people go to and fro through the square, and it's… nice. It really is _nice._ Mr. Tafano doesn't look like a person, not like Alphonse or any of the others do. He's like a child's scribbled charcoal drawing with two hot coals for eyes, but Alphonse is pretty sure that has to do with how long he's been dead rather than out of any malicious intentions. He's the oldest ghost Alphonse has found still capable of any sort of recognizable speech, though not the oldest ghost in Resembool.

There are several wisps out in the western woods, curls of dim gray smoke with the vaguest suggestions of hands and fireflies for eyes, that can only snarl and shriek when he draws near. There's one more just outside the invisible barrier that weeps when Alphonse calls out to it, its tears wrung dry of meaning a long, long time ago. He doesn't know who they were or how long they've been there. They can't touch him anymore than he can touch them, but he keeps his distance anyway. He prefers the ghosts who can speak his language, even if they're just as much of a warning of what awaits him as Mr. Tafano and the shades.

The next oldest ghost he's found was a few years younger than Alphonse when she died. Uschi lives—more or less—in the overgrown ruins of a gristmill about two miles out of town. She speaks a stilted, old-fashioned sort of Amestrian, and it was her parents' generation that settled in this valley and gave it the name it has today. She was one of the last ghosts he found but the most helpful in understanding this limbo he's trapped in; what she can't explain in words she shows him, giggling and grinning for the pleasure of his company.

She's the one that showed him gravity is a state of mind, that walking on the ground is optional, that he could trail his unfeeling hands along the bellies of clouds if he dared to. It's not flight, not like how birds and bats and insects work to defy gravity with a grace that only appears effortless. He can just—do it, simple as that. It's thought. All he has to do is think, _Up,_ and he's left the waving grass and tilled fields of his home behind. There's no stomach swooping terror, no thready rush of adrenaline, no heartbeat knocking wildly in his chest. Up and up, as high as he dares, until Resembool is laid out like a watercolor painting beneath his kicking feet.

He could go higher than that, if he dared. He could rise and rise until the clouds were cream-colored streaks beneath him and all that was above would be the blue-black nothingness glittering with innumerable stars. The thought of what might be beyond there, up beyond the barrier around Resembool, grounds him always. How high could he go before the last reluctant finger of gravity loosed its grip and just—let him go?

(He never dares to find out. He's still ten years old at heart, and there will always be a part of him that's terrified of the dark.)

Uschi is old, not in the years she lived but in the years—centuries—since her death. He would have thought she'd know everything there is to know about Resembool, from the days when Granny's father established Rockbell Prosthetic Limb Outfitters, back when automail was in its primitive infancy. But she doesn't know anything, not about the Rockbells or any of the other families that have been here since she died. She doesn't know when the church or the smithy were built, when the railroad extended this far into the mountains, not anything.

Well, no. That's unfair. She knows the seasons and the years they count. She knows the river's freezes and thaws, the migration patterns of birds, where the gnats will swarm on sticky summer afternoons, and a thousand lonesome things besides.

She never leaves the ruins of her home. Alphonse isn't sure she can. He's never asked.

There are several other ghosts Alphonse has found over the years. He's about positive he's found all of Resembool's restless dead by now, but he holds out thinking that for certain. It's a little town, sure, but it's got a long history. There are a lot of ways people can die, a lot of nooks and crannies where a ghost might pace.

There's Mr. Beckenbauer who lurks—it's really the best word for it, he _lurks—_ over his granddaughter Felicity Hildebrand, her husband Elias, and their son Barnabas out in their farm by the eastern hills. He died before Felicity was born and Barnabas is 23 now.

Mrs. Morgenstern drowned in the flood of 1873, when she was 39 years old. The thaw claimed six lives that spring, but she was the only one who lingered.

Steffie was 19 and married only three months when her house burned down. Her husband, Owen, survived to remarry a few years after that. He lost one son to a border skirmish, another to a farm accident in the neighboring town, and died himself in the bombing of Resembool station. His second wife and third son, Victoria and Conrad Sauter, own the clothing boutique on Main Street.

Ada Nichols had been the nurse at the clinic in town, taken by an epidemic over a century ago. She'd been 27.

Walt Teller had thrown himself under the train in the first year after the railroad was built. He'd been 51.

Isaiah Shriver had been an MP, killed by another soldier in an accidental misfire when they'd been drinking at the pub. He'd flirted with Granny back when she'd been 20 as well, but that was a long time ago.

Gil Cuttler lost both legs in a border skirmish—a different one than Owen and Victoria Sauter's first son, Alphonse had asked—been outfitted with automail by Granny back when Uncle Yurie had been Ed and Winry's age, then drowned in the storm Teacher saved the town from. His ghost still has automail limbs, a touch less blurred than the rest of him, a touch more solid somehow. He died within shouting distance of Mrs. Morgenstern, and he visits her on every day it rains.

Sleepy little towns up in the mountains don't have much in the way of bloody excitement, and that's something the ghost stories got right. Violent deaths. Life torn out of a body in a bright burst of pain and terror. Nobody who died old lingers over the families they left behind, nor those who died of sickness nor disease.

Alphonse has clung to that realization like a drowning person to a life preserver. They killed Mom, that night. She died bloody and torn open, gasping her last even as her new lungs tried to find purchase in her broken ribs, but she didn't leave a ghost behind. Her first death had been slow, untreatable, _expected._ She died in her bed trying her hardest to comfort the both of them right up to the end. None of the ghosts he'd asked knew for sure if a piece of herself had lingered after her first death—none of them wandered out as far as their old house—but he hoped. He hoped her first death balanced out the second. Better that she died too quickly to have felt any pain. Better that she choked quickly and went back to whatever comes after for the peaceful death, if there really is something so nice as an _after._

He had been so afraid of Mr. Tafano when he first saw him. Uschi too, scared him pretty badly. He knows better now than to be afraid of old ghosts. They're the only ones who can see him, and they light up when he comes to talk to them. None of them wander as far as he can, not even Mr. Cuttler, the youngest ghost before him.

Maybe its' a fluke of how he died; deconstructed by alchemy, his atoms scattered. Maybe one day, long decades from now, he'll be like the others. Trapped in the overgrown ruins of the house his long-dead brother burned down. Maybe he'll always be able to walk the full breadth of Resembool as he can now. Either way, he's going to become one more skeletal, grumbling shade that won't be understood by the future ghosts of Resembool.

That, he knows, will come in time.

* * *

Time passes, as it does.

Alphonse, as always, remains attentive for any mention of Ed in the newspaper, on the radio, or from any of the out-of-towners who make it to the end of the tracks. By necessity he's learned to piece together the stories that Ed refuses pointblank to share.

There is, of course, the sensationalism that dogs—pun _very_ much intended—Ed's footsteps wherever he goes. He's famous these days, and not just for being the youngest State Alchemist in history anymore. Journalists and reporters have nothing but glowing words for him, even if it's all wrapped up in adroit alliteration and positive propaganda for the military as a whole (Granny's scoffing reaches new depths of pessimism every week, it's as impressive as it is hilarious). The gossip that makes its way by word of mouth to Resembool is so much fluff and nonsense. There's never much in the way of details and Alphonse is, as always, left wanting more. But if nothing else it's always good press for _Ed._

More often than not Ed puts his missions and his myth-hunting on the back burner to save those little towns because no one else will. Ed saw a demand and became the supply, and the only thing he demands in return from the people whose lives he's bettered is that they keep moving, that no matter how bad things get they mustn't stagnate. Don't slip, don't fall, don't sink into the mire, never drown.

People all across the country have taken to calling him the People's Alchemist. All these little backwater towns he's saved from brigands and corruption and disaster, just like Teacher saved Resembool when they were kids. Is she who he aspires to be ? Did everything she taught them set the groundwork for the kind of man Ed might want to be? Alphonse wonders if Teacher pays as much attention to what the military-funded media channels pump out as he does. What she thinks of her stupid pupil's antics? Does she ever wonder why Alphonse's name doesn't crop up alongside Ed's?

Ed has never mentioned Teacher since that night, at least not anywhere Alphonse could overhear. He's never brought up Dublith or their training, or even the Southern region at large. Sometimes Alphonse wishes Ed would seek Teacher out, never mind she'd skin him alive and strangle him with his own tanned hide for good measure. Whatever punishment she'd dole out would be worth it for Ed to have another alchemist not allied to the military to talk to.

Alphonse understands why Ed hasn't gone back there, and certainly doesn't envy Ed the day he does darken Teacher's doorstep again. There was one thing she hammered again and again into their heads—the great flow, the cycle of life and death, the finality of a headstone, the brutal slap of the past tense—and what did they do?

(Alphonse can't feel anything anymore, but he shivers anyway whenever he thinks about how _furious_ Teacher would be with them.)

Winry and Granny are almost as obsessive as he is about keeping an ear and eye out for Ed's name. They've put together a photo album to catalogue all of his exploits that make the paper. There are the front page stories, full-color photographs, interviews, and even the little blurbs that amount to little more than the latest **FULLMETAL SIGHTING** that make Ed sound like some kind of rare bird. It's obvious Ed's not doing any of these good deeds for the fame; the interviews always come across like Ed's irritated by the journalists for wasting his time, and the journalists always come phrase their questions like Ed's knife collection is on full display by question three.

Ed scares Alphonse. He really does. He's a shadow of the kid he used to be. He's not growing up so much as breaking down, like he's swallowing every bit of broken glass he snatches away from the people he's saved so they can't hurt themselves with it. He's all cut up inside and outside both and still, _still_ he's convinced that this path is the only one allotted him. Worse, it's the only one he'll allot _himself._

But still— _still_ —Alphonse is proud of his brother. Ed's photo album is nearly full of all the wonderful, astonishing thing he's accomplished in a few short years, and every one of them could have killed him and _didn't._ Ed could have broken down so much worse than this cracking, ramshackle cage he's made around his heart.

He'll survive. He'll survive as long as it takes him to realize the futility of his goal, and he'll throw his pocket watch in Colonel Mustang's face and build a better life for himself, free of brigands and corruption and disaster. He'll come home to Resembool, he'll reach out to Teacher, he'll find something better to focus his brilliant mind on for the rest of his long, long life.

He has to, because the alternative is too much for Alphonse to bear.

* * *

There are a dearth of Fullmetal sightings for a while, which as always is as much of a relief as it is cause for concern. No news is good news, sure, but news is the only way he knows where Ed's at and what he's doing.

During these quiet interludes Alphonse likes to imagine Ed squirreling himself away in some dusty old library or another. Barricaded behind a wall of precariously leaning tomes and research journals, his fingers stained with ink, as content as he ever permits himself to be. He hopes Ed has a lot of good days like that, just Ed and alchemy and a pervasive quietness that might ease the tension always working in his jaw.

Of course, the interludes never last. One evening on the cusp of spring Ed's title blares out of the radio, startling the Powell family's mid-dinner. Alphonse just so happens to be perched on their mantle, having been eavesdropping on their oldest son's plans to go study engineering at East City University. Mr. Powell turns the volume knob and the lot of them listen intently for the latest on Resembool's poster boy.

The latest, as practically babbled by an audibly shaken newscaster, sounds like something straight out of a science fiction novel. _Glaciers_ have formed up out of the canals of Central City, tearing apart infrastructure and homes, converging on Central Command in an unmistakable attack on the top brass and perhaps even the Fuhrer himself. Fullmetal is on the scene—when had he traveled to the capital?—doing everything he can to stop the alchemist responsible. Alongside him are two other State Alchemists, Flame and Strongarm, as well as what sounds like every soldier in the city working to keep civilians out of harm's way. The Powells forget their meal entirely, breathless with shock— _"Every_ canal?" Mrs. Powell asks the room weakly—and Alphonse hovers over their heads, hugging himself tightly. The newscaster goes on to to explain that this impossible display of alchemy is—somehow—the work of only one man; a former State Alchemist named Isaac McDougal who had been given the entirely apt title of Freezer during the Eastern Conflict.

"But there's no way," Alphonse says to himself. "There isn't. One alchemist couldn't possibly freeze an entire city's water supply!"

But—But there _could_ be a way. If this McDougal had somehow found the Philosopher's Stone...

That's got to be it. It has to be! There's no other way one transmutation circle could span a city, let alone one as large as Central. And there's Ed, right in the thick of it, fighting tooth and nail to stop this guy from destroying Central Command or whatever his insane plan is. If Ed's as smart, as fast, and as brutal as he's learned how to be out there on his own, then maybe this is it. Maybe his hard work will pay off. Maybe, _maybe—!_

Flame and Strongarm work together to break the array to stop the flow of the ice. They succeed and the ice shudders to a standstill, apparently right at the moat encircling Central Command. Elsewhere, Fullmetal and Freezer come to blows. Fullmetal injuries Freezer, Freezer injures Fullmetal, Freezer books it, and none other than the Fuhrer himself cuts him down. The newscaster assures those listening in at home that the Fuhrer wasn't injured in the altercation, that Fullmetal's injuries are minor, that the full damage done to Central will have to wait to be determined until the ice has melted. State Alchemists across the country will be called in to hasten it along, with Flame directing them as the best-suited to the task.

As the emergency report jingle fades out Alphonse sags with relief, his feet dangling through the Powells' dining table. Ed's—okay. He's okay. He went up against someone who _must_ have had a Philosopher's Stone and walked away. The Stone is real. This is the proof, one madman doing something truly, unmistakably _impossible._ Even if his plan was stopped, the fact that he came so close as the base of Central Command—freezing half of Central to do it—is irrefutable _proof_ of the Stone's existence.

But it's unlikely Ed had a chance to take it from McDougal, not if McDougal hurt Ed and _then_ ran off. Did he have it when he went up against the Fuhrer? Surely not; the Fuhrer's 60th birthday is this year. He might still be an accomplished fighter, but one man against the same myth that destroyed a country? That almost destroyed the capital tonight? So the Stone was lost, or destroyed, or—something. So that puts Ed—almost—at square one again. Nearly, but not quite, because Ed's not hunting a myth anymore.

* * *

The next Fullmetal reporting only warrants a four-paragraph article in the Times, and not even on the front page.

(The top headline that day belongs to a State Alchemist's murder, the sixth since the new year, and the whole of Resembool worried for Ed.)

The article briefly describes Ed's hand in dismantling a corrupt religious order in a city called Liore. There's some property damage, as always, including the church itself being brought down to its foundations. Typical. Ed's rejection of God, all the trappings of faith, and his inability to keep his damn opinions to _himself_ has gotten him into trouble again. Still, from the sound of things this Church of Leto was up to some shady business, so good on him.

There's no telling from such a small article if this was a mission Colonel Mustang sent him on, or if Ed had thought there'd been something suspicious about the head priest's "miracles." Alchemy has often been mistaken for magic and miracles in the past, after all. Still, apart from the destroyed church it doesn't sound like Ed got into too much trouble on his own. (Funny, how blasé he's gotten over Ed's penchant for property damage; even Winry and Granny just roll their eyes and cluck mild disapproval as Winry pastes the article into the photograph album.) He doubts Ed's going to come back for maintenance, and the next lull proves that.

Despite his attempts to convince himself not to, Alphonse worries. He second-guesses his previous dismissals of Ed ever finding a real Philosopher's stone, and lingers over the now uncomfortable thought of what Ed will do with one once he does. What if he'd gotten McDougal's? Or the possible one in Liore? What if Ed—far too reckless, completely unapologetic, forever gnashing his teeth impatiently—tries to perform human transmutation without testing the Stone's abilities on a smaller scale? What if he makes some clever variation on the array they made together and decides the risk of losing another limb—or _limbs—_ is worth the reward of bringing Alphonse back? What if it's not a limb the next time? What if the next time kills Ed and his ghost is left haunting the streets of East City or some other far-off place? What if they'll both persist for centuries, unseen, unheard, out of reach forever from one another?

Each time his thoughts bear down this path he tries to wrench himself elsewhere, distract himself with a different household, a different person, a different taste or texture he tries to remember. He has to believe Ed's alright for this lull, the same as he has been for all the previous ones, the same as he'll be for all the ones that come after. Just because there's a vanishingly small chance Ed might have found a Philosopher's Stone in the coffers of some money-grubbing priest doesn't it make it automatically true. The Central Times would be all over it if the famous Fullmetal was hospitalized, or worse, went missing under mysterious circumstances. This is a lull, a pocket of benign banality.

Picture dusty libraries. Picture corner cafés and over-sugared coffees. Picture those uniformed coworkers of his known only by ranks, last names, and the odd anecdote shared offhand during maintenance visits. Picture them all getting dinner together after work, scolding Ed for not taking better care of himself, teasing him over some other kid his age making doe eyes at him despite his atrocious fashion sense and foul temper. Picture Ed getting enough sleep to chase away the shadows under his eyes.

Ed's fine. Ed's always fine. He has to be.

* * *

The lull ends, as usual, with a great deal of fanfare and belated metaphorical heart attacks. This time Alphonse is in the Taylor residence when the emergency report jingle interrupts the afternoon news program. Fullmetal single-handedly took down a faction of the Eastern Liberation Front which had hijacked a train bound for East City. Their goal had been a hostage exchange; a major general and his family on the train for the leader of their political extremist group. Colonel Mustang is mentioned as having met Fullmetal at East's train station to apprehend the twelve men. From the sound of things Ed got away unscathed, and only three passengers—including the major general—required medical treatment upon arrival in East.

So, that's—good. _Not_ Ed fighting twelve armed men in a moving train full of hostages. But Ed saved the day, and he won't have to be hospitalized (again) for his efforts. It's good enough.

Mrs. Taylor huffs, picking up her embroidery again as the news turns to other topics. "I don't understand how they can justify putting a child in harm's way like that."

"He's not really a child," Bella, their youngest, points out. "He's a whole year older than me."

"That's much too young to be fighting armed terrorists!"

Alphonse agrees wholeheartedly, not that he's got any say in it.

"That boy's always been an odd one," Mr. Taylor grunts from his well-worn chair nearest the fireplace in their sitting room. "And he's turned out to be a real nasty piece of work ever since the accident."

Alphonse scowls.

"It's no fault of his if he went a bit strange after that," Mrs. Taylor says.

"Strang _er,"_ Bella and Matt correct in unison, then laugh. Alphonse's scowl deepens. He never did like Bella much—she used to pull on Winry's hair in class when they were little—but Matt always seemed like a nice kid. People act so much differently when they're behind closed doors.

Mrs. Taylor hushes them both. "He's been through so much, and at his age no less! Poor thing."

"I wish he'd stay longer when he does come back," Matt says after a pause. "He and Al used to fix stuff for us all the time, you know? And they never wanted money or anything."

"Bit thick of them," Mr. Taylor says. "They could've done well for themselves if they'd charged, paid back old Pinako with interest for her trouble."

"And how much would you have paid out of pocket when they fixed your dad's watch?" Mrs. Taylor asks archly, and both of the kids grin at their dad when he harrumphs.

"Well. I suppose it doesn't matter much now, does it? They must be paying him a fortune, being a dog of the military and all."

"D'you think he gets a bonus for every bad guy he catches?" Bella asks. "He's on the news all the time; he's gotta be rich!"

Mrs. Taylor sets her embroidery down again, tangling her fingers together nervously. She _hates_ the news, whether or not Ed's involved. Any minute now she's going to go busy herself with the kettle and smoke on the back porch until her hands stop shaking. "I wish he'd never joined the military. There's no telling what awful things he's had to do for them, or how much of what we hear is even true!"

Alphonse slips out of their home as their conversation turns to the terrorists and the trouble they've been causing up and down the eastern region for years; yet another group in in a long string of them unhappy with the current state of things. Leave the grownups and the kids that still have a chance to grow up to worry about men with guns and the price of bread. He's not interested in the big picture; it doesn't have any bearing at all on him.

Still, he walks out of their garden with his head down and hands fist in his pockets. He can't shake what Mrs. Taylor said. About the radio, and propaganda, and the nearly-full photo album Winry and Granny have compiled of all of Ed's good deeds. He thinks about the swell of pride he hopes Ed feels when he's called the People's Alchemist before Fullmetal. He thinks about Auntie Sara and Uncle Yurie, and all the good they did during the Eastern Conflict before they were killed. He thinks about Colonel Mustang, and how the paper likes to remind its readers that the State Alchemist program put a stop to the seven-year conflict in a matter of months. Alphonse wonders what kind of deeds a man like Colonel Mustang must have done in Ishval.

Who's to say Ed won't have to do the same one day too?

Who's to say he hasn't already?

* * *

Weeks pass. Spring shrugs off the last stubborn chill of winter. It'll be another month, maybe two depending on how much rain there is, before Resembool's rolling hills explode in a riot of bright wildflowers. In the meantime the countryside is overwhelmed by the bright shock of new grass and budding trees. Alphonse spends hours with Uschi out in the ruins of her family's gristmill, trying to help her remember what all of this beauty should smell like.

"Earthy! Come on—damp and warm, that good kind of humid smell that makes you want to curl your toes up in some mud. You know?"

She wrinkles her nose. "I think perhaps smell is first to go, when you die."

"Aw, c'mon, don't be such a downer. Think back! I know it was a long time ago—"

"Thank you, I had _almost_ forgot."

He grins, spinning on tiptoe on the highest point of the stone wall that hasn't crumbled yet. It's kind of fun, all the places you can reach when you don't have to worry about body mass. _"Uschi..."_

She harrumphs, folded up in the empty space where a window used to be. The sun-bleached wooden frame would have left terrible splinters in her hands and legs if she were still alive, but that's not something she's had to worry about for a long, long time. "I don't _remember._ It's been too long!"

"But you're still way more _—you—_ than Mister Tafano is, and you only died like, forty years after him or something. Come on, try a little harder!"

She crosses her arms over her narrow chest and scowls. Her eyes blaze like disturbed embers, shockingly bright against the grayness of herself and the home she died in. "I don't care about him. I will never know him, so what does it matter?"

Alphonse considers this. He considers her. It's true that she does look a fair sight better than Mr. Tafano, but that's hardly saying much. He can tell she died wearing a long dress with her hair plaited back, but details beyond that are hard to parse. She's a sketchy, shaking shape, all her colors bleached to the fine gray ash of a spent fire save for the blaze of her eyes. She used to scare Alphonse, but there are worse things than little girls to be afraid of.

He asks her, "Doesn't anyone ever come out here?"

And she says, "You're the only one who can."

* * *

He's back at Rockbell Automail again a few mornings later, perched neatly out of Winry's way and bobbing his head along with the radio. Granny's out weeding in the garden while Winry does the last of the washing up after breakfast. Winry hums along with the jazzy number playing, a little out of tune but neatly in time. Even the clink of the cutlery being set out to dry matches the beat. It's been a lull for them too; no new customers, no maintenance visits, nothing but fiddly stocking and prep work for worst-case scenarios.

There is, of course, always the risk of injury in a village centered around agriculture and livestock, and Granny's the only surgeon in town. Well, Alphonse amends, give Winry a couple more years to earn her certifications and Resembool will have two surgeons again. Of that, Alphonse doesn't have any doubt. She's assisted in a lot of outfittings since Ed's and her skills have improved in leaps and bounds. She's a brilliant mechanic, never mind that she and Granny both think she could do with a lot of improvement still. As far as he's concerned that's just the Rockbell streak of perfectionism at work again.

The song wraps up, but instead of a brief commentary on the composer or the band that performed that recording, the emergency news jingle jangles out. Alphonse and Winry both freeze, leaning in intently. The latest story is that of yet another murdered State Alchemist, killed just the same as all the others this year. Shou Tucker, the Sewing Life Alchemist, and his four year old daughter were found murdered in their estate this morning along with two MPs stationed outside. Tucker had been facing disciplinary charges for reasons not yet disclosed to the public as the investigation was still ongoing as of his death. There's a brief, conciliatory comment from someone from Central's Investigations who had come to East City to—

"But that's where Ed's at!" Winry yelps, bolting for the back door. _"Granny!"_

Alphonse is just as worried, flinging a prayer in a vaguely skyward direction, hoping he won't hear any mention of Ed this time. If this serial killer is targeting State Alchemists in the same city Ed's stationed in, then there's every likelihood that—that—

Ed's fine. No matter what happens, Ed will _remain_ fine. He's a fantastic fighter, for all that never watches his _back—_

"He'll be fine," he assures Winry and Granny. "You know he's holed up in some library somewhere—or hey! I bet Colonel Mustang's sent him off on another mission! You know how Ed's always complaining he never has enough time for research, right? He's gotta be miles away from East City, totally safe from this Scar guy."

Maybe if he says it loud enough and often enough, he'll convince himself as well.

* * *

That same day the lunch hour program is interrupted again by the emergency news jingle. All three of them fall tensely quiet, praying for good news. But this time, as with any other time this _shit_ jingle blares out of the radio, it's anything but. The serial killer known only for the X-shaped scar across his face has targeted another State Alchemist; Fullmetal is the first to have survived an encounter with this mysterious man.

"Oh god," the three of them say.

The newscaster goes on to detail a—literally—explosive chase across East City, with several streets damaged by alchemical attacks by both Scar and Fullmetal, three MPs killed, culminating in the timely arrival of two other State Alchemists—Flame and Strongarm again—as well as a team of soldiers to back them. But even with all of that firepower Scar managed to escape into the sewers. Citizens in East and the adjacent towns are asked to be on guard for a man matching Scar's distinctive description, warned not to engage as he has proven to be aggressive to anyone who gets in his way. Fullmetal declined to make a statement, but both Colonel Mustang and the Lieutenant Colonel heading Central Investigations reiterated that the military is doing everything in its power to catch this madman—

"But Ed's okay," Winry stammers. "Right? They would have said if he'd been hurt, wouldn't they?"

Granny's got an expression like she's been sucking on a lemon, which speaks volume for what's left unsaid. _Not if they were intentionally downplaying how dangerous this maniac is._ Out loud she says, "Of course. Knowing Ed though, I'm sure we can expect to see him in a couple of days or so. I suppose we ought to freshen up his room. It's almost been long enough since his last visit that it could benefit from some dusting."

Winry smiles weakly, so that almost makes it all okay.

* * *

There are 37 years couched between Steffie and Owen Sauters' deaths, but they've had plenty of time since Owen's to catch up. The Sauters' first home was only a block from the train station, near enough that they can sit side by side again, holding hands and sharing stories. It's honestly a bit sweet how well they still get on.

"Your brother's a brat and no mistake," Steffie informs Alphonse flatly.

"He's not a brat," Alphonse replies, defensive. "He's just got a lot on his plate."

"Sure, and he's shoveled it all there himself. Nobody forced him to run off and fight serial killers."

Owen rests a hand on Steffie's shoulder, shooting Alphonse an apologetic look. Neither of them can feel it, of course, and their edges go a little fuzzier where they overlap, but it calms her all the same.

They both died in terrible fires, ravaged by burns, their lungs scorched to the last breath. Some days—on low days—they mirror how their bodies must have looked when they died; twisted limbs, the flesh sloughing off their cracked bones, a halo of fire devouring their faces. But not today. Steffie is more washed out, like damp watercolors, her fingertips and the curling ends of her auburn hair transparent, but her crooked smile is friendly. It's still easy to see how pretty she had been when she'd been alive. Owen's only been dead a handful of years longer than Alphonse. He looks just as real to Alphonse as his own body does.

The train whistles its arrival farther up the tracks and he slips down off the crate he'd been on. "He's worked hard for everything he's managed to hang onto. And besides, you've never seen him in a real fight."

Steffie shrugs. "Neither have you."

"I don't need to. I know him. He'd never let some psycho get the better of him. No matter what, Ed will keep going."

If he says it often enough, it might even hold true.

As if to prove his point Ed's the first off the train; impressive, considering he's on crutches. For one terrible moment Alphonse freezes, thinking of pouring rain on a black night, Ed sobbing in the mud. But no, no. That was then. This is now. Ed's moving with ease, impatience even. He practically dances out of the way as an absolute mountain of a man steps out after him. But the shock still coils in the muscle memory Alphonse clings to; he can almost feel his heart in his throat, his stomach twisting, his knees turned to jelly.

Ed's automail is _gone._

His pant leg is neatly pinned out of the way to keep it from dragging, the empty space an explanation point of just how close he must have come to—

Alphonse can't finish that thought. He can't bear to. But Scar must be a terrifyingly skilled fighter to have not only beaten Ed but to have destroyed Winry's work too. Still. Alphonse forces himself to relax, to focus on the easy smile Ed throws the large man's way. There's no tightness to his expression, no smothered pain. He isn't hurt this time. At least there's that.

"Got a ways to go yet, Major," Ed says. "They don't live in town."

"Is there a car we could requisition?" The large man asks in a surprisingly gentle rumble.

Ed laughs too lightly. "Cars haven't made it this far out into the boonies yet. Besides, I'm sick of sitting on my ass, aren't you? C'mon, we're burning daylight."

Alphonse waves goodbye to the Sauters—Steffie sticks her tongue out at him, Owen waves languorously—and trots after Ed and the major.

"You've never come back with any soldiers before," he points out. "Is he an escort? Mm, no, a guy this big, he's got to be a bodyguard, huh? That makes sense. You wouldn't be much use in a fight right now. And speaking of use— _Brother._ You _know_ anyone would lend you their wagon if you asked. You don't have to be so stubborn all the time, you great big idiot. It's okay to rely on other people sometimes, which I _know_ you've got at least a passing grasp of, since you're letting this guy carry your suitcase."

Ed moves like an old pro on the crutches, never mind it's been years since he's had to use them on the regular. He's such a skinny thing, swallowed up by all those heavy layers he wears, that it's easy to forget he's _wiry_ with muscle. Ed hops along with hardly any strain, just a slight breathlessness as he points out a few things or greets people around town as they walk through. The major nods, making polite comments now and then on the long walk out to Rockbell Automail. Ed doesn't sound tired or shaken, like he hasn't just survived what must have been his nearest brush with death since they night they tried to bring Mom back. He almost sounds cheerful.

"You're a shit liar," Alphonse tells him. "I hope it helps to pretend anyway."

* * *

So it turns out what's left of Ed's leg is packed up in his suitcase. It's less recognizable as a leg as it is so much deconstructed scrap metal, which begs the question of what the _fuck_ kind of serial killer is targeting State Alchemists. The Times has provided so little detail on the previous murders, just the date and general location, along with a lengthy biography on the latest late State Alchemist. But that's unmistakably transmutation marks all along the metal exterior, which suggests someone using prepared arrays. No way Ed would have allowed himself to be held down long enough in a drawn array.

But he can wonder about that later. He listens, satisfied, as Winry gives Ed a well-deserved scolding—a _little_ smashed up? Really, Ed?—then promises to get his new leg built in only three days. In the meantime Ed's put on a spare leg and sent out to pasture while the major—Alex Louis Armstrong, the Strongarm Alchemist in the flesh, which cements him as Ed's bodyguard in Alphonse's eyes—offers to cut some firewood. Ed putters around his room for a bit, but quickly grows restless and gets dressed again.

Alphonse follows him into town, knowing where he's going. He wishes Ed wouldn't visit the cemetery every time he came back to Resembool, wishes he'd stop beating himself up over what happened, but there's nothing to be done for it.

It's another trip to Mrs. Caddeo's flower shop, Den trotting at Ed's heels and shying away from Alphonse's cold touch. She knows better than to dare more than polite small talk, then it's out of town again, to the neat rows of headstones, to Mom's first grave all on its own. Ed transmutes the usual wreath, placing it carefully.

He lingers a long time, saying nothing.

Alphonse stands beside him, paying no attention to Mom's grave. He can look at it any time he likes. Graves don't go anywhere, but Ed never stays in Resembool a minute longer than he has to.

It's in these quiet, unguarded moments that Alphonse can best note the minute changes that have undergone Ed since his last visit. Without an audience Ed's dropped his forced cheer, set it aside like so much dead weight. Alone, he allows himself to wear his exhaustion and his fear freely. He's fifteen years old and a grown man with a list of dead appended to his serial killer's moniker tried to cut him down for—what, exactly? Why would anyone try to kill Ed? Because he's a State Alchemist? Never mind all the good he goes out of his way to do even though no one expects him to bother?

Ed looks scared. He looks lonely. He looks like a kid that's been doing a grown up's job for too long.

"I'm sorry," Alphonse says quietly. "I wish I could have been there. I wish I could have helped you."

Den whines, and that seems to be enough to shake Ed out of his thoughts. He does a stiff about face, limping quickly out of the cemetery. Alphonse and Den follow, and as always Alphonse hopes Ed won't cross the bridge at the T junction on his way back to Rockbell Automail. As always he does.

Ed's predictable, each time he visits. It's always bickering with Winry and Granny, eating three helpings at every meal, fixing anything Granny asks him to in a flashy show of alchemy, and this dead-eyed self-flagellation he insists on no matter that any living person tells him he needn't. Flowers bought and transmuted and placed on Mom's first grave, where they decided together to try and bring her back. Then a pilgrimage up to what's left of their house. He'll linger there for an hour or more, saying nothing, doing nothing. He always just stares at the burnt-black ruins with his eyes like two cigarette burns in his pinched face.

Alphonse never goes to their house when Ed isn't here. He suspects one day he won't have a choice. One day, a century or more after everyone who knew him is dead and buried themselves, the range his ghost will be able to travel will shrink so much that he won't be able to leave their house. One day he'll be like Mr. Tafano and Uschi, trapped in a scant few feet of space. One day he'll be like the skritch-scratch shadows in the woods who can only scream and weep like trapped animals.

He tries not to think about that. He avoids their house, skittish of knowing its shape too well. Still, he'll follow Ed every step he can, even when it takes him to the place where he died.

Ed never tries going into what's left of their house. Smart of him, really. What little there is left of the first floor surely isn't sturdy enough to bear his weight. He just stays in the yard, eyes caught in some distance Alphonse can't ever reach, haunted by more than the brother he can't see or hear.

Alphonse stays beside Ed, watching the ebb and flow of unuttered thoughts war on his face. With an audience—with Winry and Granny, all the townsfolk, and probably anyone he's ever spoken to regarding his reasons for joining the military—Ed is loud and stubborn, bombastic and _impossible_ to argue with. He declares he's going to do the impossible even though their first attempt cost him his leg and that was with them working in tandem. He's consumed by the need to make right what went wrong, by a drive to break the great flow of life and death to drag Alphonse out of the nothingness his body was scattered to. He sprints for self-destruction, hopes to wipe the slate clean by undoing what he believes he did to Alphonse.

(Alphonse has long since given up trying to convince Ed of how wrong he is. He could scream until the cows came home and Ed wouldn't hear a whisper.)

But alone, here, standing before the closest thing Alphonse has to a grave, Ed—falters. Here in this place that Alphonse would do anything to avoid otherwise, Ed seems to come the closest to admitting to himself how insane his goal is, how impossible, how likely it is that it will kill him in the end.

Maybe there's a part of Ed that wants that to happen. Maybe Ed's just spinning his wheels until he's confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that the taboo is truly impossible. Maybe once he confirms the Philosopher's Stone is out of his reach or that there is no cheating the great flow, he'll just... commit the taboo anyway. Die trying.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. That's all Alphonse has. It's not like Ed'll ever say anything out loud.

He sighs. "I wish you'd quit punishing yourself like this. It isn't healthy. You'd yell at Winry until you were blue in the face if she pulled something like this over her parents. Hell, Brother, _she's_ yelled at _you_ until she was blue in the face, and have you listened? Of course not. You're not to blame for what happened. I don't blame you. I never have. It was me. It has to have been my fault. That's why it killed me. We were so sure we knew what we were doing, but we didn't. We were arrogant. I should have done more. I should have reviewed our work more. Somewhere we miscalculated, I know we did. I wasn't sure that night. I didn't think we were ready, but I didn't say anything. I should have. I'm sorry."

Den whines again. Ed blinks dreamily, comes back from whatever distant hell had stolen him away. He looks down at the dog with something that might, if one were feeling generous, be considered a smile. "Come on. Let's go home."

Ed never calls Resembool home when he talks to someone who can talk back. Is he even aware he does that? Probably. Probably the same way he never says Alphonse's name aloud either.

* * *

Ed's second night back, he has a nightmare.

Alphonse always stays in Ed's room when he's here, curled up in a corner out of the way. It's calming to be near Ed while he sleeps. To hear his steady breathing, to know for sure that he's safe. But all too often his nights are disturbed like this.

(He wonders how frequent these nightmares are elsewhere, far from home, surrounded by strangers, playing a grown up's game with inscrutable rules revealed to him at only the most inopportune moments. It's no wonder Ed looks so scared—so _scary—_ these days. Alphonse can only imagine the life Ed is forced to lead beyond the barrier he can't cross.)

Tonight Ed twitches, twists like there are embers burning him beneath the sheets. His skin gains a sheen of sweat as his breath quickens, becomes an erratic panting interrupted by a plaintive moan. "Nina," he pleads. "No. _No."_

Alphonse stands beside the bed, hands clasped tightly together. He could rouse Ed easily, a sudden chill just as shocking a glass of water upended over his head. But Ed's bristling shields are at their weakest when he's like this; pitiful, raw, plagued by the horrors Alphonse can only hear secondhand accounts of. This, awful though it is, is _real._ He listens. He watches. He wonders who Nina is, what happened to her. He wonders if her ghost walks the moonlit streets of some far-off city he can never see.

Ed grunts, startles awake like he's hauled himself bodily out of tumultuous waters. He sits there, gasping, like it hurts him to breathe at all. He hisses, hugs his spare leg to his chest, whimpers pain through clenched teeth.

It's been years, but his stump still seems to hurt him all the time.

"Who was she?" Alphonse asks. "Who was she to you?"

Ed breathes, and breathes. Eventually, he relaxes. Eventually, he gets up and limps out to the front porch. Alphonse follows him. Together, a foot and a lifetime apart, they wait for dawn.

* * *

Winry finishes Ed's new leg in three days, just as she said she would. She didn't sleep a wink to pull it off, but does Ed thank her? Of course not! He's really got no idea how lucky he is to have such a dedicated friend and mechanic that's almost as crazy as he is.

Ed, of course, immediately rushes outside to break it in the second the brace is attached. He runs through warm up exercises and several increasingly acrobatic maneuvers, getting dirt in all the joints. But he gets his comeuppance when Major Armstrong boisterously declares that he'd be delighted to assist Ed in his calisthenics with a friendly bit of sparring. Ed's shriek when he does a ridiculous backflip to avoid Major Armstrong's huge fist is the funniest thing Alphonse has heard in _ages._

But his fun has a bittersweet edge to it. Ed, as always, adjusts quickly to the new leg, and is pleased to have gotten what he came for. Because Winry worked day and night he and Major Armstrong will be able to board the train departing Resembool tomorrow instead of the one four days from now. Ed can go off and do whatever it is in Central that's had him twice as antsy to leave as usual.

Alphonse wishes for what surely must be the thousandth time that Ed would be more open regarding his research with Winry and Granny. Sure, they wouldn't get more than the gist of it, the same as he and Ed will never really grasp the complexities of automail. It's a matter of interest—or perhaps _obsession_ is the better word for it. Still, Winry and Granny care. They're family, by bond if not by blood. They hope he excels, and are delighted when he does.

If nothing else, Alphonse sure would appreciate having more than an _inkling_ of Ed's plans for once.

Ed and Major Armstrong had one inscrutable conversation while Winry was working and Granny was in the kitchen making lunch. There had been vague mention of a doctor they'd met on their way to Resembool, something about research notes, something about the First Branch library in Central, and something that sounded an awful like like a _real_ breakthrough in Ed's search for the Philosopher's Stone. It must be good news, the way Ed's paced and grinned around the others.

Alphonse... isn't sure how to feel about this development, if he's honest with himself. Before Ed had become a State Alchemist—in that year of sweat and blood and feverish fervor, when the idea to hunt down a myth first occurred to Ed, and Alphonse had given up being furious with a self-destructive brother who couldn't hear his insults—he _hoped._ He used to hope it was true, that the Stone was real and that Ed could find it, because the alternative—an endless purgatory, beating his fists against his head in an effort to feel _something_ because he can't touch anything else—was the worst possibility he could imagine.

But that had been before he'd met any of the other ghosts, before he learned that there would one day be a second death for him, many centuries from now. Ghosts wear thin, wear out, wear away to a mindless mist in the periphery of the living. One day, a long, long time from now, he'll be scattered on a breath of wind. The last sentient scrap of him gone forever. He's heard stories from the others, of red-eyed wisps that used to weep and snarl in other places. But they're all gone now, faded away to a true and final nothingness.

This isn't forever. This too shall pass. He knows that now, and the knowledge that _forever_ isn't something he has to come to terms with has put him at ease in a way he once thought was impossible. An eventual, inevitable nothingness is better than lingering forever.

He doesn't want Ed to try and resurrect him anymore. The odds of the transmutation going wrong again are simply too high. Adding in a variable as dangerous as the Philosopher's Stone—if it's real, then the truth behind the fall of Xerxes must be real too—is no guarantee at all. Instead of the transmutation only—only!—killing Ed, it might destroy Resembool, or the entire Eastern region, or all of Amestris for that matter. It sounds preposterous, sure, the idea that the consequences of a single transmutation could affect an entire country, but who's to say? The myth of the Stone says that the Philosopher from the East hid it away so that no one could use it. Not _misuse_ it, simply use it all.

One life can't be worth that risk. It simply can't. If only Ed could understand that.

* * *

Ed and Major Armstrong leave. Life—metaphorically speaking—returns to its usual order.

Weeks pass, as they're wont to do. Alphonse watches people pack away their winter clothes and bedding, don cotton shirts and dresses, throw open their windows to let in a clean breeze after a good rain. The late spring storms don't get as bad as they have in years previous; the river doesn't flood, the town isn't in any danger, nobody dies. He watches families tell each other about their days over meals, listens to their radios, reads over their shoulders, spends the nights watching the stars wheel overhead. He watches busy hands wash dishes and fold laundry, hem tears and work smithies and make sandwiches and till rich brown earth and shear sheep. He watches busy hands do all things his own can only pass through and tries to find contentment in the watching.

About two weeks after Ed left he goes out to the Stendahls' farmhouse, walking around to the narrow hole in the back porch. He lays prone and peers into the gray shadows, sees a pair of luminous green eyes staring back. He smiles and waits for the dusty little mouser named Silvia to decide whether or not she's in the mood to be bothered by a ghost today.

(He learned that night that dogs could hear him. It took longer to realize that cats could see him, but it was a delightful realization nevertheless.)

"Mrr," Silvia trills after a moment, and she blinks contentedly.

"It's good to see you too," he says. He's pretty sure cats can't hear him, but cats are funny creatures. It's just as likely that they don't see any point in bothering to answer anyone who isn't as real as them. He holds out his hand, like he used to with cats when he was still alive, giving her the option and opportunity to sniff him and find nothing to smell. Silvia stays where she is, but after a couple minutes she blinks again and starts to purr.

He crawls in on all fours, ignoring the unease his mind can't shake whenever he goes somewhere a living person wouldn't be able to squeeze through. Beyond the narrow hole, thankfully, there's plenty of space to lay without bits of him passing through anything. He sprawls on his stomach with his chin rested on his hands once he's in, smiling at the scene he finds.

Silvia keeps on purring. Out of the soft gray shadows her kittens cheep and mewl, wobbling to their little paws and yawning so widely they stagger over again. The one with fur like a tuxedo is the first to toddle over to him, big eyes staring like it can't believe this big weird thing that's showed up in its nursery is real—more or less, anyway. He passes his hand through its back and laughs when it mewls loudly in surprise. Two more kittens come closer to investigate him, wanting to be braver than their sibling. In the deeper gray shadows Silvia curls up in a comfortable loaf, happy to catch a nap without her young to interrupt.

There are so few joys left to him, but at least he has this.

* * *

Some weeks after Ed and Major Armstrong left, Alphonse walks through the front door of Rockbell Automail to find a scene of controlled chaos awaiting him. Winry's charging around her workroom grabbing all manner of wrenches and screwdrivers and tin jars of polish and oil, tossing them all into a traveling toolbox Granny bought for her fifteenth birthday. She mutters a checklist under her breath, counting out the things she's already packed on her stained fingers.

"Don't forget to include clothes along with all of that," Granny teases.

"I will," Winry replies, distracted.

"You're leaving?" Alphonse asks. "What for? What happened? You didn't mention anything yesterday."

"You've got time before the train leaves," Granny says. "There's no need to stomp around like you've lost your head."

"I know. I just want to make sure I have time to double check I haven't forgotten anything."

"If you don't rush there won't be any need to double check. Toothbrush."

"Right, yeah, thanks."

Alphonse hops up to brush against the ceiling rather than risk startling either of them with an unexpected chill. He's too confused to remember to feel sullen about being ignored. This is all just so—sudden, is the thing. Winry's never left Resembool before. Sure, she's daydreamed about traveling to the "holy land of automail" one day, but that's always been a dream for _later._ She's as singularly focused on automail as he and Ed are with alchemy. It's always been a bone of contention between her and Ed, but Alphonse has learned to respect and admire her passion.

(Granted, it probably helps that he's never had to have Winry dismantle parts of him.)

"Is that where you're going?" He asks aloud. "Are you starting your apprenticeship already?"

Winry pauses in the hallway, toiletry bag in hand. "It _is_ strange though, isn't it? He's never wanted a house call before."

Oh no.

Granny hums. "No, he hasn't. Then again, he does seem to at least try to keep his trips out here to once a month if he can help it."

Winry laughs. "For how much they pay him you think he wouldn't mind the train fare."

"Or the free room and board," Granny grins, and they both chuckle before Winry dashes back up to her room.

"What did he do?" Alphonse asks, a touch desperate. "What's happened? Is he hurt? Or is he out of leave again? Did he say for once? Granny?"

Of course Granny doesn't hear him, and of course neither of them say outright what the reason is that Winry's been called out to—wherever. They don't even say that much. Is Ed still in Central, looking for whatever-it-is that some mysterious Dr. Marcoh sent him there for? Or did he find it—or was it perhaps a wild goose chase—and he's back in East City again? Or did Colonel Mustang send him out on another mission and he's in some other far-off city, doing who-knows what all on his own again?

They don't _say._ Granny just makes sure Winry's packed sensibly, hands her a sandwich for the trip, and hugs her tightly before pushing her out the door. Alphonse follows Winry's brisk pace into town, watches her buy a ticket—as far as East, but she could be buying a transfer ticket once she's there—and then she's on the train and the train is on its way past the invisible barrier, where he can't go for all the wishes and curses he hurls at it.

He stays at the station a while, filling in the ghosts there on the latest Fullmetal Vagary, as Ada Nichols jokingly calls Ed's more official exploits. They comfort him the best they can, assure him that Ed's alright, that Ed will be home again soon, that Ed won't do anything truly crazy out there on his own. And Alphonse smiles and thanks them, because the alternative is too heavy a burden to share.

* * *

After that he doesn't leave Rockbell Automail again for fear of missing a phone call from Winry. Granny appears to be in the same nervous boat as him; she doesn't go into town for groceries or for a drink at the tavern, choosing to remain alone up in the house despite not having any appointments until Thursday. She smokes more than usual, the embers burning out as she stares into the middle distance with a book left forgotten in her hands. Her attention strays north again and again, and after a time she stops fighting it. She keeps the radio off.

Winry doesn't call the day she left, but that's alright. It's a long trip to East City, even longer to Central if she had to go that far, and she's sure to be busy sorting out whatever-it-is that Ed did to his leg this time (and shouting at him all the while for making her worry). After that she'll need to find an inn, and there's no guarantee the inn will have a phone, right? So there's no sense in lingering even after Granny finishes her evening tea and goes up to bed. Winry wouldn't call so late, right? So there's no reason to stay, no reason to pace the kitchen and worry. He should just go out and walk the fields. He should go watch the mousers and foxes and owls hunt by moonlight, or go sit with Uschi or Mrs. Morgenstern or—somebody. He should distract himself.

But what if there's something seriously wrong? What if Ed's in trouble? What if, what if?

He stays by the phone all night, just in case. It doesn't ring. Some small and superstitious part of him thinks it might have if he'd bullied himself into leaving. Either way, the sun rises and Granny comes downstairs again not long after. She lets Den out, makes coffee, smokes out on the porch (with the door cracked, in case the phone rings). She putters, she tidies, she keeps herself busy. She doesn't eat breakfast, has only buttered toast for lunch. She's just as worried as he is.

Dinnertime comes and goes. Granny's good and eats something more substantial, but it's clear her heart's not in it. Even if Ed is okay and they're both worrying for nothing, she's got every right to be worried about Winry too. Winry's never had any training like Ed, and she's far more trusting. Sure, she's got a terrifying throwing arm and she's hard to scare, but how far can that get her in a city as big as East or Central? Granny nurses a cup of coffee and her evening smoke, and Alphonse sits with his legs dangling off the table beside her.

It's after seven when the phone finally rings. Granny all but jumps up to answer and Alphonse hastily maneuvers himself near enough to eavesdrop without chilling her.

 _"Hey, Granny! It's Winry!"_

A smile breaks the forced calm Granny's schooled her face into all day. "Ah, there you are. And don't I feel silly for worrying."

 _"I know, I know! I'm sorry. I really did mean to call yesterday, but I got kind of caught up in something until pretty late."_

"I hope that 'something' wasn't Ed's automail. He hasn't destroyed your hard work already, has he?"

 _"N-no, no. I'm staying with a friend of his here in Central, with his wife and daughter too. It was their daughter Elicia's birthday yesterday. The party ran long and there was cleanup and everything afterward."_

"That's awfully kind of them. Truth be told, I'm not sure I can believe Ed's managed to make any friends."

Alphonse snorts.

"So go on then," Granny says. "What's the damage on his leg? I expect you'll have charged him a small fortune in house call fees."

Winry—

—hesitates.

When she speaks, she's quiet. Subdued. _"It wasn't that damaged, actually. His kneecap needing a dent hammered out of it and an output wire had frayed badly enough he couldn't move his toes. He couldn't come back to Resembool for that because..."_

"Because what, girl?"

 _"Because he's been hospitalized."_

"Hospitalized?" Alphonse yelps.

Granny's knuckles whiten around her glass, its contents sloshing. "How bad is it?"

 _"Bad. He—he won't tell me what happened, just that he got into another fight. But he can barely sit up on his own, and his face is all messed up, a-and—"_

"And what?"

 _"—his fingers. He's lost two fingers."_

Granny sucks in a breath between her teeth, though whether that's because of what Winry's said or because Alphonse dips through her head and hand in shock is difficult to tell. He shrinks back, covering his mouth with both hands. Ed—what happened to Ed? Who hurt him so badly? What could have happened in the capital to have gone so wrong? He pictures a gurney meant for a grown man, an IV—Ed _hates_ needles, but would he have been in any state to fuss?—and big machinery to measure his vitals. Gauze and stitches, the harsh white overhead lights like in the Rockbell's surgery room, the ones that wash everyone out and makes them look far sicker than they really are. His face—what happened to his face?

"Which fingers?" He whispers.

Winry goes on in that hushed, trembling voice about the soldiers assigned to Ed as bodyguards—not because of whatever landed him in the hospital, but because of Scar. He's still being targeted by this serial killer, might still be a target for however long it takes the military to catch him. Major Armstrong is their superior officer, and he tasked them to watch Ed while he remained in Central. They're not State Alchemists, just a second lieutenant and a sergeant assigned to Investigations, but they're the ones who saved Ed.

"Saved him from what?" Granny asks.

 _"They wouldn't tell me. Said it was 'regarding an ongoing investigation.' Honestly, they're not very good liars, either of them. I wouldn't put it past Ed to have ordered them not to tell me anything. He does technically outrank them."_

Granny harrumphs. "And here I've been assuming Mustang hadn't actually given him any real authority to go along with that leash."

"Which fingers?" Alphonse asks again.

 _"At least he seems to be doing well enough to bark orders at his bodyguards. He was pretty quiet both times I visited him."_

"The life that little maniac leads," Granny swears. "It's enough to make me want to drive him out of town for good."

Winry manages a slightly damp chuckle. _"R-right? Well, I just—I've decided to stay a few extra days even though I got his leg sorted out. I want to make sure he's gonna be okay, y'know? Since he won't just tell me what's going on. I'd prefer to stick around and get some idea of what's happened, rather than go home imagining the worst. I mean, that serial killer's still after him!"_

Granny leans forward, slapping the table smartly. "You be careful, Winry. I don't want you getting caught up in any of the ugly business the military might demand of him, you understand?"

 _"Of course, Granny, I just meant—"_

"I know what you meant, and I also know you haven't got much experience in _needing_ to be careful. Central is a far cry from Resembool, and some of the worst stories I've heard have come from the heart of that city. Truth be told I had my share of unpleasantness there too when I was younger, and that's saying nothing of the kind of murderer who can make scrap metal of your handiwork."

 _"I—"_ Winry huffs. _"Granny, I"m not staying to track down the people who hurt him or anything crazy like that. I'm not stupid, I know that's best left to the MPs and Mister Hughes' office—oh, that's who I'm staying with. Mister Hughes is Major Armstrong's superior in Investigations. I just... Ed's been hurt really badly. The nurse I spoke to said he can be released next week, but he'll have to keep most of his stitches for longer than that. He's gonna be okay, but I'm still worried about him. He was still a little out of it when I got in yesterday, but today he..."_

"What happened?" Granny and Alphonse both ask.

 _"I dunno. He's... a different kind of cagey than usual. I know that doesn't make any sense. It's just this feeling I've got though. I'm hoping he'll loosen up if I stick around a little longer. His bodyguards—Second Lieutenant Ross and Sergeant Brosch, I don't think I mentioned their names either—they seem worried about him too. I just want to help him."_

Granny shuts her eyes, leaning back in her chair again. She looks too old again, carved from wood, worn down to indistinctness. "I know. I'm worried about you too, though. That's all."

 _"I know. But I"m not wandering around in the middle of the night or anything, and the hospital and Mister Hughes' apartment are in a nice part of the city. I'm being careful."_

"You're not overstaying your welcome, are you? I gave you enough money for a week's stay at any decently priced inn."

 _"Mister Hughes wouldn't take no for an answer when he offered to let me stay with them. I tried to pay them, but—"_ On the other end a man calls out something boisterously indistinct that makes her laugh. _"—Right. Mister Hughes said—well I mean, they've both made it clear they won't take a cenz from me, so I'm just going to help out anyway I can while I'm staying with them."_

Granny smiles. "Good girl."

 _"Well, anyway, I don't want to tie up their line for too long. Mister Hughes gets a lot of work calls. But I'll phone again tomorrow, okay? Same time, or would you prefer a little earlier?"_

"Now's as a good a time as nay. Take care of yourself, and pass along my gratitude to the Hugheses."

 _"I will."_

"And be sure to smack Ed upside the head for me."

Winry laughs again, warmer this time. _"Trust me, I"ll be happy to do that. G'night, Granny."_

"Good night."

They hang up. Alphonse falls back, his feet touching soundlessly to the floorboards again as he lets his hands drop from his mouth. "Why didn't you ask which fingers?"

Granny finishes her drink, washes out her glass, lets Den out and then back in, and goes off upstairs to bed. For all that Alphonse wants to stomp and shout, he's learned better by now.

* * *

The next several days settle into routine. Alphonse spends the days wandering. He chats with the other ghosts, riles up the dogs, spooks the cats. He eavesdrops, he watches, he reads over people's' shoulders. All the usual ways he passes each endless, interminable day. It's in this fashion that he belatedly hears about an explosion in Central that destroyed a condemned military structure. There's no mention of Ed, Fullmetal or otherwise, but it's an easy pair of dots to connect.

Come suppertime he makes sure he's back at Rockbell Automail, bouncing impatiently on his heels for Winry's next call. Every night at seven sharp she calls. For the most part she sounds happy, happy enough to be exploring the capital with Missus Hughes and their daughter, happy to be out on her own for the first time in her life, happy to have her own adventure. Whenever the conversation turns to Ed, however, her cheer falters.

He's recovering well enough, antsy to be released, as petulant with the nurses as he ever is with her and Granny. But it's like she said before; there's a new caginess to him, unlike his usual efforts to keep Winry in the dark. He refuses outright to say how he was hurt _—"He told me, 'It doesn't concern you.' Can you believe the nerve of that twerp?"—_ and has had several conversations behind closed doors with Major Armstrong and Lieutenant Colonel Hughes. Something serious happened, maybe something truly terrible. But does Granny ask the right questions? Does Winry? No they do not!

"You're both going to drive me around the bend," Alphonse declares dramatically, glaring daggers at Granny as the pair of them change topics from vague worrying about Ed's latest shenanigans that somehow cost him two _still_ unspecified fingers to automail models popular in Central. "Really, I mean it. I'd even go so far as to say 'You'll be the death of me,' but I beat you to that."

Den whines. Alphonse glowers at the dog too, for all the good it does. It makes him feel better anyway.

If he could he'd march right up to Central, wring Ed's neck for almost getting himself killed _again,_ then demand every last detail of his breakthrough on the Philosopher's Stone. Because that's what this is all about, he's sure of it. Dr. Marcoh gave Ed access to his research, a couple weeks later Ed almost died fighting mysterious people, and that same night a condemned military building exploded. Major Armstrong had mentioned that Marcoh had served in Ishval, a tidbit of information given out as a simple aside over dinner one night. So, a doctor with interest in the Stone who served in Ishval adds up to a former State Alchemist, and _that_ points toward a worrying idea that the _military_ was funding his research.

It makes sense though, when he considers the idea more thoroughly. It'd be natural enough for the military to have at least a passing interest in the theory of recreating the myth; it would be stupid for a country as power-hungry as Amestris to ignore the power to level its neighboring enemies. But the building Ed almost certainly was hurt in wasn't given any kind of drab cover story. If they'd called it storage or a warehouse or something equally banal, no one would think twice about it. But to call whatever-it-really-was condemned, remaining vague about the cause of its collapse, and keeping the Fullmetal's name out of the news when he's been hospitalized with severe injuries? That suggests someone out there wants to draw as little attention as possible to whatever research Ed's been working on. And—

Hold on. Hadn't there been a fire in Central while Ed was in Resembool? Alphonse had been distracted, having his brother around again however briefly, but he recalls hearing something to that effect on the radio. He can't remember what it was, only that it had been something big. Something else with military connections. A lab? A library?

Ah, he can't remember.

Whatever it was, it's one more tally of chaos in Central this year. Scar, destroyed military infrastructure, protests, unrest regarding the ever-present tensions with Aerugo, Creta, and Drachma. On and on and on...

Alphonse leaves Winry and Granny to their evening chat. He spends the night out in the fields, watching the stars wheel overhead, and he wonders.

* * *

Two evenings before Ed's to be released, Winry calls the same time as usual. This time, however, she's as subdued as the first night she called.

"What happened?" Granny and Alphonse both ask.

 _"Nothing,"_ Winry replies too quickly. _"I—well, I mean, nothing's happened. Ed just... kind of scared me today, is all."_

"What did he do?" Granny and Alphonse both ask.

 _"Oh—jeez, I knew you'd think of it like that. He didn't hurt my feelings—not this time anyway. It's just—I finally got him to talk to me a little about what happened, which is what I hoped he'd do, but..."_

Granny harrumphs. "You regret it now that you've heard him out?"

 _"...A little. That's awful of me, isn't it?"_

"Not at all. What did he say, Winry?"

 _"Well, nothing that made much sense. Not to me anyway. He told me he'd made some progress on his research—"_ Alphonse punches the air. _"—but wouldn't say anything else about it. He didn't seem happy about it though—"_ Alphonse drops his fist. _"—just that he went somewhere for answers, and that's where he ran into trouble. He said some of the people who hurt him weren't human."_

"What does that mean?"

 _"He said they were souls bound to a blood seal. I think like a transmutation circle drawn in blood? He wouldn't go into detail—and honestly, I'm a little glad he didn't. He went off on this tangent, really got into it, bad enough he strained a couple stitches in his side. He kept going on about a suit of armor that used to be in his house?"_

"Mm," Granny says. "There were two of them. His father brought them back from one of his business trips, oh, years ago. Long before either of you were born. He liked collecting old things."

 _"Really? I don't remember seeing anything like that."_

"They were down in the basement, if I recall."

Alphonse remembers them. A pair of towering, dusty antiques keeping watch over them when they used to fall asleep over their work down there. Ed thought they looked really cool, even if that was almost like admitting he liked something about Dad. They always gave Alphonse the creeps though. What do they have to do with what happened to Ed?

 _"O-oh. Sure,"_ Winry falters. No doubt she's trying not to think of their array, of the bloodstains, of Alphonse's empty clothes. Certainly Alphonse is trying hard not to. _"Well, Ed kept going on about those, and about Alphonse, and that night too. He kept saying all these awful things about himself; calling himself stupid, a coward, that kind of thing, and that he should have realized he'd 'been given a chance to save Al,' but didn't realize it when he could have done it."_

"What did he mean by that?"

 _"I'm not sure. I was trying to calm him down by then, which I was able to, eventually. But you know him. He got embarrassed and tried to pick a fight with me instead of talking things out like a normal person, so I left pretty soon after that."_ She sighs again. _"I know I should try and get him to talk about—about all of that, but... it scares me. Seeing him so upset really scared me, Granny."_

Granny braces herself against the countertop, her eyes shuttering closed. "I know."

 _"What should I do?"_

"Be there for him, as long as he'll let you. Don't needle him—I _know_ you'll want to, I've seen you start the fight a hundred times if I've seen it once—but don't let him stew either. Is he returning to East City after he's been released?"

 _"No. He mentioned something about wanting to visit someone, but he got all weird and cagey about that too. I'll try and figure out what his plans are. In the meantime... yeah. Yeah, I think I know what to do now. Thanks."_

"Of course."

 _"I should probably go now. Good night."_

Alphonse is out of the house before Granny can hang up the phone, half-running, half-skirting the thin air, rushing as fast as he can to the one place he never goes without Ed. Home—and more than that. The one place he's never gone since Ed burned their house down.

The basement.

He hesitates at the edge of the property, where the burn edges have been softened by another spring's growth. He wrings his hands together, tries to remember the pressure he should feel, the bite of his joints, the swell of strangled veins. He tries to remember the cold pit he should be feeling in his stomach, the squeezing in his throat, the trickle of nervous sweat down his spine. He clings to the memories of things he can no longer feel, grounding himself in almosts and maybes, and in reminding himself that his fear is unfounded.

The worst thing about being a ghost—out of the long, _long_ list of things that are terrible about this embittered, shadowed existence—is how easy it is to let go. Gravity is optional, and yet instinctual. If it's overthought, it becomes a strain. It's so, so easy to lose control if you think about it as _needing_ to be controlled. The ground, he's learned, is a hungry thing, eager to swallow up any unwary ghost walking along its surface. Even the dead are scared of drowning, of suffocating, of being trapped in some dark hole where no one and nothing will ever pass by again. One day, he's certain, he'll be trapped in the basement for good. He died down there and a year later Ed burned their house down. Much of what didn't completely burn collapsed in on itself, and now the basement is a dark hole filled with jagged and charred rubble.

If he goes down there he won't be hurt— _can't_ be hurt—no matter the state of it. But it won't be like walking through a door or standing in an end table. He'll have to linger down there, in a blackness that will _want_ to choke him.

But he has to know.

So he crosses the threshold of the place where the front door once stood, takes an unnecessary breath, and lets go. He _sinks._ He's swallowed up as if the darkness has grown hands and has pulled him under eagerly, Panic claws at him. He lets it go. Claustrophobia holds him fast. He lets it go. Blackness blinds him. He lets it go. He opens his eyes wider, and sees.

Human eyesight is limited by the constraints of its physical anatomy, yet a ghost can see just fine without the body their soul has outlasted. Why should he be limited by the sight he was born with? He strains to see better, and is rewarded. Dim shapes make themselves known. Jutting beams, heaped stone. The crumbled height of an emptied bookshelf, a snarled heap of blackened dining tables, a charred shape that might have been the trunk that had sat at the foot of Mom's bed. He ignores these things. He ignores the imagined weight pressing in on him on all sides, the very real solidity of everything he passes through. He's not _real_ enough to feel it. He's not real enough for it to _matter._

The suits of armor. That's what he came down here for. If he can see them again with his own eyes—metaphorically speaking—maybe he'll understand Ed's train of thought. He almost had it earlier, listening in on the phone, but it slipped away from him before he grasped the whole of it. He's got to know.

They'd stood side by side in a corner. He remembers that now. But he's gotten turned around, coming straight through the floor instead of finding the collapsed staircase first. He doesn't know what corner is which now, so he'll have to check them all. The armor will be badly damaged from the fire, perhaps unrecognizable as anything that could have once held a person inside them.

He's rewarded in the third corner. There they are—what's left of them, anyway. Huge lumps of soot-blackened iron and cracked leather straps, stood apart from the wreckage of the house for the puddled shapes they'd cooled in. He forces himself to go nearer, hovering a hand over each as he tries to remember what they once looked like. They'd been severe, intimidating, covered all over with spikes and filigree. The helmet of one of them had been shaped to look like it had fangs, right? Of course Ed liked them. Everything he transmutes has fangs or spikes or waggling tongues. Alphonse wonders where Dad found these things, why he dragged them all the way home. But that's idle curiosity, something he can gnaw on like a dog with a bone later.

A blood seal, Winry had said. Iron bound to iron. An array that would remain active so long as it remained unbroken.

"A soul bound to a suit of armor," he whispers to himself in the dark. Ed had fought at least one of these... these _things_ in Central. Probably more than that. A body of iron that could neither tire nor bleed.

It's no wonder he almost died, fighting monsters like that.

"You don't really think this could have been an option, do you, Brother?" He runs his hand over the ruined suits, wonders if its surface would be coarse and pitted by the fire, if it would be cold to the touch. Trying to bring Mom back cost him his life, and Ed his leg. If he'd tried to save Alphonse too, who's to say what that might have cost him?

Alphonse drops his hand. Better that Ed never thought to try.

* * *

 _A/N: I'm not a fast writer so I hope you don't mind waiting another month or two for the next chapter. Thank you again for reading!_


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Apologies for taking longer than I anticipated! My health took a frustrating turn, but I'm back to baseline now and I bring you just shy of 13k of that good good ghost!Alphonse fun. Thank you for your patience, favorites, and reviews! You're all lovely._

* * *

Winry's call the evening before Ed's release is a far more cheerful one. _"We're going to Rush Valley!"_

Alphonse pulls away from Granny and the phone in her hand, wincing even though he can't feel pain. That was _shrill._

Granny though, she just beams. "Ha! It's about time you made your way down there. But don't tell me _Ed_ of all people picked up an interest in automail."

 _"Of course not. That'd mean he finally figured out what good taste is. He's going farther south than that, but I convinced him to pay for my ticket there and back. I'm so excited, Granny! I'm going to see the holy land of automail with my own eyes!"_

"Oh yeah," Alphonse mutters. He'd forgotten the name of the city, but he's spent too many years around the Rockbells not to know about this far-off biomechanical boomtown. He leans back in once it seems Winry's finished gleeing at a pitch fit to shatter glass.

 _"I'm going to try to get Ed to spent some time there with me before he heads down to—oh, what was it again? Dublith?"_

Alphonse immediately recoils again. "Oh no."

"What's in Dublith?" Granny asks.

 _"I guess that's where his old alchemy teacher lives?"_

"Don't call her old!" Alphonse hisses.

"Oh, that's right, I remember now. Missus Curtis."

 _"Who?"_

"You remember the year the boys left for their training, don't you?" Granny hesitates, mouth thinning, making a visible decision to avoid any mention of that being the same year Winry's parents were killed. "She passed through here during the spring thaw with her husband. She shored up the river with that same funny alchemy Ed can do."

 _"Oh yeah. I'd forgotten about her."_

How on Earth could anybody forget _Teacher?_ Alphonse shakes his head in disbelief. God. On the one hand, he's hoped Ed would eventually brave the trip to Dublith. But on the other? He does _not_ envy him.

Winry and Granny turn the conversation back to Rush Valley, to models Winry wants to see in person and old shops Granny suggests she visit, and so on. Alphonse leaves them to it, more interested in puzzling out why Ed's chosen to seek Teacher out. What could have spurned this make-or-break decision? Some revelation in his research? His near-losses to Scar and those armor-bound souls in the last couple months? Ed's always been a bit of a sore loser. It's likely to be training that he's after—and hopefully that's _all_ he's after. Hopefully he doesn't intend to mention anything regarding soul alchemy or human transmutation. Teacher would throw him out of a window for that kind of talk and she wouldn't bother to open it first.

He's worried for Ed. He's worried what Teacher will say, what she'll do. For years she was the stick by which they measured alchemy and all other practitioners, the one and only other alchemist they've ever known. Alphonse hasn't seen her in years, knows that it's impossible for her to browbeat him over what they tried and failed to do, and _still_ he shivers under the imagined weight of her glower.

 _Brr._

Hopefully Teacher will at least give Ed time to say his piece before she breaks him in half.

* * *

He goes back to Rockbell Automail every evening after Ed's released, just in case. Winry's proven to be reliable about calling, something he's long since given up on Ed ever bothering with, so he's hoping for news sooner than later. But it's not just news he's after that drives him to spend frustratingly quiet hours watching Granny. It's just...

Well. It doesn't feel _right_ to leave Granny all on her own.

Rockbell Automail is so much bigger without Winry clattering about it too. Her workroom is dim and still, her bed neatly made. There's no game of cards after dinner, no dry commentary shared about the morning news, no shopping lists made, no experimental dinners barely salvaged. It's just Granny and her meals for one, Granny sorting through a shipment of new parts in the basement, Granny watching the sun rise and set with pipe smoke curling around her head, Granny on unhurried walks with Den into town. Without customers or her granddaughter to fill the house with chatter, Granny... shrinks. She shows her age. She uncovers her griefs in empty rooms, sandpapered to smooth edges yet still bearing the odd splinter to startle.

Alphonse remembers when Auntie Sara and Uncle Yurie still lived here. He remembers Auntie Sara hugging him close as he cried not long after Mom died, Uncle Yurie teaching him how to tie his shoelaces. They were never formally adopted by the Rockbells, no, but it was never a question of who in town would look after them when it became clear Dad wasn't coming back.

He looks over Granny's shoulder at the old pictures, smiling to himself as Den's tail thumps against a table leg. The first baby pictures of Uncle Yurie, a swaddled pink lump with a tuft of blond hair in a much younger Pinako's arms, pride apparent in her exhausted grin. Others, with and without her late husband, Grandpa Rockbell who passed away before Ed was born. Yurie growing up and up, a toddler then a boy then a teenager then a young man. Then Auntie Sara joins the photographs, her blonde curls cut in a flyaway bob, growing out as she grows up. She's not from Resembool, the same as Mom. Alphonse has dim memories—memories that are more likely to have been etched out of stories he's heard and reheard from Granny and Auntie Sara—of the two women being close friends. There'd only been a year's difference in their ages. Auntie Sara had been only three years older than when Mom died when she was killed in Ishval.

"I miss them too," he tells Granny.

But Granny's smiling to herself rather than dabbing at her eyes. True, it isn't a happy smile. She misses them all terribly; her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law, Mom. She lingers over pictures of Dad too, her old drinking buddy. It's strange, Alphonse thinks. If the dates written on those sepia-toned photographs are right Granny's known Dad almost fifty years. Strange, because Dad looks the same in the oldest picture Granny has of him as he does in the family picture taken only a year before he left. He should be in his nineties, but he doesn't look any older than forty in every single picture Granny has.

Strange. It's a peculiarity Alphonse picks at from time to time, but it's a moot point. Dad is gone, dead or run off, and either way Alphonse will never see him again. Why should he waste any time wondering after the man who left his family behind when Granny's right here, slow to shake herself out of bittersweet memories?

It's not right for her to sit here all alone like this, waiting for someone living to make the trip out of town. When he catches her looking too melancholy he riles Den up or sets his cold hands against her shoulders until she shakes herself off and puts away the photo album. He's glad he's still real enough to help her like this; chasing away cobwebs and making her laugh when Den yelps at nothing.

* * *

Winry will call again soon, either during her trip to Rush Valley or when she's on her way home again, but there's no telling when that call might come. It's likely she'll succeed in bullying Ed into staying in Rush Valley a day or two. Once Ed gets too irritated, he'll take a train bound for an early grave in Dublith and Winry will come back home with at least two bags overflowing with trinkets she'd coaxed Ed into buying for her. Sure, they might fight like cats and dogs more often than not, but she's got him wrapped around her little finger.

(Alphonse saw right through that guilt trip she'd pulled with the earrings Ed had brought back as "gifts" the first few times he showed up with his leg in shambles, not that Ed didn't deserve it. Winry's ears weren't even _pierced_ back then. Dumbass.)

All in all, the radio silence is a return to routine. He checks in with Granny once or twice a day. The rest of the time he wanders where he wills, picking people at random to follow for the day, spending the night talking with other ghosts. Anything, to chase away the hours.

Granny's next appointment is with Mrs. Perrault, a woman some years younger than her who'd been injured in a carriage accident as a girl. Her left arm is below-the-elbow automail, a slim-fingered design done by some other mechanic in the West. She had to move across the country for work about the same time as when the Eastern Conflict really picked up, and word of mouth brought her to Rockbell Automail about a year before Alphonse died. She and Granny have been close friends ever since.

"—can't let her out of my sight five minutes before she's up to her neck in trouble," Granny complains as he passes through the front door. She's trying not to grin though, so whatever phone call he missed had shared more good news than bad.

"Damn," he mutters as he sits down on the floor near Den. "What'd I miss, boy?"

Den's tail flops a little as he grins lazily, not bothering to lift his head up. Good dog.

"Oh, don't go blaming her for all that," Mrs. Perrault says, swatting Granny's hand playfully. "You raised her right. She's such a sweet thing. It's that boy who dragged her into the whole mess."

"Hey," Alphonse says, but it's a token protest. Whatever happened, it probably was Ed's fault. He's pretty sure Ed just has one of those faces people like to punch.

"Will I didn't say it wasn't his fault, now did I?" Granny sighs. "He's a feral little brat, no question. There's a good heart buried in there _somewhere,_ mind, but he was born itching to raise hell and that's only gotten worse since his brother passed—"

 _"Hey,"_ Alphonse says with more feeling. "Don't pin this on _me."_

Granny slips the external plating back into place on Mrs. Perrault's forearm. "It's not that I don't want her to apprentice. She's got a real gift for biomedical engineering—"

"And so young!" Mrs. Perrault interjects warmly.

Granny doesn't return her smile, tapping her screwdriver against the other woman's metal wrist. "That's the trouble. She's too young to go off on her own. I didn't apprentice until I was nineteen. I know things are different these days, and Mister Garfiel certainly sounds like a fine young man, but I'm still worried for here. Rush Valley is a rough city."

Alphonse blinks. "Wait, Winry's apprenticing? Since when?"

"You raised her right," Mrs. Perrault repeats, resting her other hand on Granny's briefly to stop her tapping. "She'll handle herself fine, and she's smart besides. She knows to be careful."

"She's _fifteen,_ Sally. There's no such thing as being smart or careful _enough_ at that age."

"Ha, isn't that just so? Still, here I thought you'd be proud of her. Delivering a baby and earning an apprenticeship all on her own like that!"

"She delivered a _what?"_ Damn, it's only been a few days! Apparently he can't ever leave this house again if he wants to keep up with any and all insanity.

"Well," Granny says, looking sly, "I think her surname might have given her a leg up getting that apprenticeship."

"Oh?"

"She was recommended to Mister Garfiel by the babe's grandfather, none other than _Dominic LeCoulte_ himself."

Mrs. Perrault lights up like the mid-winter lights festival has come early. "You don't _mean—_ the same Dominic you know back when you were...?"

"The very same!"

They throw their heads back, all but cackling. Alphonse huffs. "You two could actually _share_ some of these stories you're always laughing over one of these days, you know."

Of course, they pay his suggestion no heed. Soon their conversation turns to other, less interesting things. He leaves them to it, going down the hall to Winry's workroom.

The door's cracked enough to let a narrow streak of sunlight in, filling the room with soft shadows and gleaming spots of light off the unfinished pieces she'd left without their oil cloths in her hurry to make the train. He stands in the narrow square of clear floor space behind the pushed-in chair, eyes falling to the coffee tins and mason jars lining the shelves. One jar of bolts catches the light a little differently than its neighbors; the rough edges of hasty alchemy etch strange angles across the glass. Ed had broken it by accident years ago while Winry had been in town. Winry, of course, had noticed it right off, but she's let Ed go on thinking he'd gotten away with it.

Alphonse considers the empty chair, the silence, the stillness, the motes of dust spinning in the space his shadow should stretch. Minutes pass, in the soft, difficult-to-notice way they do when there's no one else around. He finds himself unexpectedly... sad? Is that the right word for it? _Sad_ is a heavy word, better appended to cataclysmic emotions like _grief_ and _loneliness._ He doesn't know what word would better describe this feeling, this almost disappointed surprise, like someone pulled the rug out from under him for a laugh at his expense. He can't settle on a word, but he's still left feeling _something_ over the fact that Winry isn't coming back after all. He's whiled away a lot of hours here in this little room, watching her work. He'd sit out of the way, perched up where he could see her hands work magic, shaping so much scrap into carefully shaped puzzle pieces he couldn't begin to parse, and with absolute ease she'd put all those pieces together into new limbs for people who'd had their own taken from them.

People always compare alchemy to magic and miracles, but those people have never seen an automail engineer in total, unapologetic love with their craft. Winry gets this look on her face as she works, this all-encompassing serenity despite the shriek of heavy machinery. It's like she'd rather be here in this little room than anywhere else in the world.

But that's not true, because she isn't coming back. She's moving forward, growing up. Oh, she'll visit. He knows her too well to expect anything else. She cares for Granny too much to leave her up on this hill alone for too long. She'll visit, perhaps not as frequently as Ed but for longer stretches when she does. But then she'll leave again, just like Ed. She'll go back to the life she's carving out for herself in far-off Rush Valley, the rough-and-tumble city of her dreams. She'll commit herself wholly to the craft she's lived and breathed for as long as Ed has lived and breathed alchemy. She'll be happy there.

Rush Valley, as he's pieced together from Granny's stories, is some wondrous city in the South, a desert valley hemmed in by spires of weathered red stone and deep canyons, hot and bright and chaotic, teeming over with people from all walks of life and a dozen different models of automail in every shop. When Granny apprenticed there she stayed for years, and afterward went traveling around the country for even longer. She only came back to Resembool for good when her dad fell ill, husband in tow and Uncle Yurie born shortly thereafter..

Resembool is a place to settle, a place to build a home, a place to forge a shared happiness that will last a lifetime. It's a place to raise families, to grow old, to laugh on the porch on sticky summer evenings as fireflies wink erratic patterns in the waving grass. It's a place for children, not for young people trying to grow up and figure out what kind of person they want to be.

He doesn't mind that Winry's moving forward. He's happy for her, really. He just thought... he thought there'd be a little more time before she left too. That's all.

* * *

So.

Winry's apprenticing in Rush Valley, which—according to the train station's detailed map—is only one stop north of Dublith. From a purely practical standpoint, it'll be good to have Winry that much closer to Ed. You know. In case of... mechanical failure.

Oh, who is he kidding? Teacher's going to break every bone in Ed's body for what they did, and it's not like she'll leave his left leg alone just because it's made of steel. Ed won't have the foresight—nor the hindsight, for that matter—to appreciate it, but at least he won't have to haul his broken carcass halfway across the country so Winry can finish him off for destroying her beautiful work.

(Again.)

That's how he rationalizes it when he's feeling optimistic, anyhow. He wouldn't be at all surprised to see **FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST FOUND DEAD, BRUTALIZED** emblazoned on the front page of the Times one day.

...He really, really doesn't envy Ed facing Teacher all on his own. _Brr._

* * *

 **CENTRAL INVESTIGATIONS OFFICER FOUND DEAD, MURDERED,** screams the front page of the Times.

In smaller print—with far too many exclamation points to be tasteful—the article goes on to detail that Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes was found dead in a phone booth in Central Park, the apparent cause of death a single gunshot wound to the heart. He had no known enemies and there are currently no suspects. For his ultimate sacrifice in service to Amestris he has been posthumously promoted two ranks to that of Brigadier General. It goes on to list the commendations he earned in Ishval, bland details of the years he served in distinction, and the fact that he is survived by a wife, Gracia, and one daughter, Elicia. They have asked for privacy in their time of grief.

Alphonse steps back from reading over Granny's shoulder, dismayed. "Hughes? Wasn't that the family Winry stayed with in Central? Brother's friend?"

Granny has one hand pressed to her mouth, the paper shaking in the other. After a moment she sets it down, folds it so she needn't see the top article. She finishes her morning coffee in silence.

* * *

Days pass, then weeks. A whole month of days passes by without so much as a whisper of Ed. Winry calls every few days, always bubbling over with excitement and technical jargon and absurd stories. She doesn't mention Ed apart from saying she hasn't heard from him either. _"Like that's anything new."_ Which is true, and sort of comforting for it? If he hasn't been found chopped up into neat little pieces yet then maybe Teacher took pity on him. Enough that she hasn't chased Ed out of town yet, at least, and really, that's more than Alphonse dared to hope for.

He can't help but worry anyway, as he always does in the uneasy interim. The time they spent in Dublith as kids was—amazing, honestly amazing. They learned more in six months than they did in all the preceding years of teaching themselves out of Dad's old books. Teacher had been—terrifying, yes, absolutely, no question. But she'd been fascinating too. The most skilled and knowledgeable alchemist they'd ever met—still, in his case, and more than likely the same for Ed too—and she barely ever _used_ alchemy. All her neighbors had stories of times past when she had, and it had always been for big, important events. Lives on the line events. Halting chaos and destruction in its tracks, just like how she'd saved Resembool with a single clap of her hands. Everything else, from wobbly chairs to leaky roofs to broken plates, she insisted be fixed by hand.

Fascinating too, if a bit overbearing at times, had been how smitten she and Sig were. Overbearing, yes, but it was honest—at least, as far as he could tell then as an eight year old boy who'd not yet really taken much notice of girls. Since then he's had ample opportunity to compare their marriage to that of other couples, in public and behind closed doors. Sig and Teacher remind him a little of Auntie Sara and Uncle Yurie. Wholehearted devotion, love their foundation rather than a coat of paint. True love like out of a story. Love each person worked hard to keep fast. Love that soared on the good days and dug its heels in and persisted on the bad. Love that was so, so worth the time and energy put into it. The kind of love—the kind of _bond—_ that anyone would admire, and perhaps even envy.

He's wondered on more than one occasion if Mom and Dad had been at all like that. If they'd shown their love for each other in the small gestures as much as the grand ones. If Mom had brought Dad a fresh cup of coffee without being asked to when he lost track of time in his study. If Dad chased her out of the kitchen so he could make dinner while she took a well-deserved break. If they folded laundry together, washed and dried dishes together, picked weeds on blisteringly hot days together, stayed up late worrying about the latest trouble their precocious sons had gotten into. Did Mom know why Dad left? Had Dad really intended to come back like she said he would?

He wishes he knew. He can't remember. His memories of their parents are even shakier than Ed's, and it's not as if he can ask anyone for details.

Teacher was—and still is, more than likely—less the sickly housewife she insisted she was and more a force of _nature._ It hadn't mattered that she'd been gray and shaking and wiping blood from her mouth more days than not. It hadn't mattered because nothing in this world could possibly have the audacity to really hurt her. Teacher was—is—an undeniable, impossible, wonderful _fact_ of a human being. She survives her illness by sheer stubbornness and the love she has for Sig. She demands that every moment of pain be worth it, in the end. Teacher was—and will always be—a font of inspiration for them both.

He wonders what she and Ed are doing in this interim. Surely Ed told her what had happened that night. What they tried to do, what it cost. Ed might try to avoid that conversation, but there's no question that they'll spar together. She'll notice his leg and she'll pry the whole ugly story out of him, with meat hooks and brandished cleavers if she has to. What will she have to say about Alphonse's death? What will she think of Ed's insane plan to commit the taboo _again?_

He hopes she can talk Ed out of it. If anyone can, it would be her.

Picture Ed in Dublith. Sleeping alone in the room they'd shared when they were kids. Sparring with Teacher every day, even on the days she shouldn't have gotten out of bed. Spending hours in the kitchen talking together, bruised and sore and laughing, nursing cups of that spicy coffee Sig likes so much. Picture the sunlight breaking into a million million squares of white brilliance off of Kauroy Lake, the summer sun baking heat into the narrow cobblestone streets late into the evening. Picture the tangled labyrinth of abandoned ruins they'd played in, Ed's expression bittersweet over the memories rather than thunderous and brittle. Picture Ed smiling and meaning it.

Maybe the next time Ed comes back to Resembool he'll have accepted the empty space next to Mom's grave for what it ought to be. Maybe Ed won't ever be able to stomach buying a headstone for an empty grave, but maybe he'll start leaving two wreaths at Mom's. Maybe Ed will throw his pocket watch in Colonel Mustang's face and wash his hands of the military. Maybe Ed will find some other hook to hang his dreams on.

He hopes. He has to hope Ed can move past his madness. It's all he can do.

* * *

Of course, the quiet can't last forever. Six weeks and two days after Ed left Rush Valley the front page news screams about no one less than the Fuhrer himself leading a sting operation in Dublith, and of course the Fullmetal Alchemist was right in the thick of things.

"For Heaven's sake," Granny sighs.

Apparently a bar called The Devil's Nest was a hideout for yet another paramilitary group with a storied history of aggressive acts against the military and civilians both. The members of this group were taken down with extreme yet necessary force, as they had made it clear they'd had no intention of surrendering quietly. There's a brief statement from Fuhrer Bradley relaying his relief that this threat had been handled without any loss of life of the men operating under him, that he's glad to have been able to lead such a brilliant team before this nefarious group could go through with their more violent threats, and what a pleasure it had been to see young Fullmetal in action. It all sounds very...

Well.

Alphonse isn't sure _what_ to make of it, to be honest.

It just seems a little... _odd_ that the Fuhrer would risk life and limb like this. Aren't sting operations better suited to younger soldiers? Then again, this paramilitary group can't have been that much of a threat, at least compared to the one Ed took down solo earlier this year. Alphonse hasn't even heard of this Devil's Nest gang before, and the news is a constant stream of reports about violent groups demanding radical, dangerous changes.

(The fact that Ed has regular dealings with terrorists leaves Alphonse weak-kneed and _hating_ that he can't be there fighting alongside him, but that is an old wound he's sick of salting.)

This group in Dublith sounds like a criminal bunch, at least from what's briefly reported on them, but nothing that warranted the attention of a State Alchemist—let alone whatever force Fuhrer Bradley mustered. On the other hand, it was Bradley who put an end to that former State Alchemist's plot in Central a few months previous. Who's to say this group down South didn't have similarly lofty goals? The news can only report so much after all; there's no telling what intel the military had on them they'd chosen not to release to the public. Who is Alphonse to say that Bradley wasn't doing his duty by cutting these people down before they could make a direct threat against the brass?

Still.

Still, something about this doesn't sit right with him, and Alphonse is relieved to find that he's not the only one thinking the same. A lot of people right here in Resembool seem to feel the same way. They wonder after this group; their motives, their convictions, the families they left behind. They wonder after this group none of them have ever heard of before now, never mind the news repeatedly stresses that they were a well-known group of armed extremists. They wonder why the Fuhrer keeps ending up knee-deep in bloody affairs like this when he would be better off serving the country from behind a desk, wielding a pen rather than a saber. These are dark and uncertain times, and Amestris' citizens look to him for guidance. There have been nothing but wars and insurrections and unrest for—God, who even knows anymore? Just look at Liore, the latest in a long line of regional upsets.

Strange too, how Liore's gone to pieces. All these terrible riots the news reports, so many deaths, no resolution in sight. Everyone in Resembool had been so proud of Ed for dismantling that shady religious order, but now no one knows what to think of that either. The reports claim that the "true" leader of the order had been away, and that Ed and the citizens had been duped by a cruel imposter. Liore is divided now; half its people willing to trust this returned leader, half wanting nothing at all to do with Letoism. Alphonse wonders if Ed knows what's happening in Liore. He must, right? He's a State Alchemist. He must be privy to far more information than what gets divvied out in easily digestible snippets to the public. Right?

Propaganda is less an uncertain worry here in Amestris than it is a simple, unavoidable part of life. Many adults in Resembool can recall a time before the current regime, when the news made a little more sense, when people weren't quite so wary of what their neighbors might overhear. Nowadays everybody is a little more cautious, a touch more restrained, just in case. But Alphonse is privy to all sorts of things people say and do away from prying eyes and wagging tongues. In a rural town like this it doesn't ever amount to much in the greater scheme of things, but that's a concept Alphonse doesn't find himself needing to be concerned with much anyhow. If it doesn't involve Ed, what does the greater scheme matter?

He wonders though, sometimes, what it would have been like if he'd died in a bigger town. A proper city, even. Sometimes he wishes he could have known beforehand what the cost of their transmutation would be. He would have picked somewhere else to die, even though it would have meant never seeing Winry or Granny again. Dublith would have been nice. If he could have known, too, that Ed would end up in East City he would have picked there in a metaphorical heartbeat. What he'd _give_ to be closer to his brother...

Oh, but that's a pointless wish. He died in Resembool and he'll remain here until the last stubborn wisp of his ghost fades away. There's nothing to be done for it.

Still, the townsfolk can gossip and wonder and whisper behind their hands all they please. None of what they think or what they're told is what really happened, that much Alphonse is sure of. The Fuhrer and a whole team needed to step in to take down a ragtag bunch of thugs in the same town Teacher _and_ Ed were in? Ed's an old pro at this kind of insanity now and Teacher is twice as terrifying as Ed on her worst days. No matter the situation, if things came to a head they would have handled it themselves with aplomb. So why did Bradley feel the need to step in and kill The Devil's Nest down to the last man?

It doesn't sit right with Alphonse. It just doesn't make any sense at all.

* * *

Winry calls again and this time Alphonse manages to listen in. It's mostly exasperated ranting about Ed, because three guesses who showed up out of the blue yesterday? Ed tried to weasel his way into her good graces despite being beat half to hell with his leg _wrecked,_ feeding her some bullshit story that managed to avoid answering even one of her questions. Then, somehow in the short span of time she'd left Garfiel Atelier to fetch a few parts, Ed managed to destroy three city blocks fighting a bunch of Xingese tourists! His leg went from wrecked to scrap metal in about twenty minutes. _Bombs_ were involved somehow? Winry's friend Paninya has a _short-barreled cannon_ in one of her automail legs, apparently?

(Alphonse decides he's happier not knowing the details for once.)

The Xingese tourists stuck around Atelier Garfiel after all was said and done. Mr. Garfiel is letting them stay in a spare room, as it seems they haven't got much money and are really quite nice. Ling Yao does most of the talking, as the other two—an old man, Fu, and a young woman, Lan Fan—are his retainers. They're in Amestris looking for _—of all things—_ information on the Philosopher's Stone. That was the conversation that derailed into wide-scale property damage that Ed's still out hobbling around on a spare leg repairing. Winry's washed her hands of the whole thing, since Ed's staying mum as usual and Ling has a funny habit of pretending his Amestrian isn't half as good as it actually is.

 _"I'm pretty sure Ed's quit fighting them because he's too wore out after all the alchemy he's done,"_ Winry says. _"He barely ate dinner yesterday and he still looked pretty rough when he left this morning. You should see the state Fifth Avenue is in though, Granny! It's unrecognizable!"_

"I can believe it," Granny replies dryly.

It's going to take Winry about a week to build a new leg from scratch _—"And I'm charging him a rush order fee anyway. He's being such a jerk, Granny!"—_ then she and the three Xingese tourists will be following Ed up to Central. She wants to visit the Hughes family again, they want to track information down on the Stone, and Ed's being as vague as ever about his own plans.

Curiously, Granny doesn't say a word about Brigadier General Hughes.

Alphonse looks at her once she's hung up the phone. She looks like she does when she visits the cemetery; weary down to her marrow as she prunes weeds from the graves of her family and Mom. "Why didn't you tell her?"

Granny, of course, doesn't answer.

* * *

Alphonse misses Winry's last call before they leave Rush Valley and he could _kick_ himself for that. She'd called every day after Atelier Garfiel closed for at least a few minutes, and under her voice he'd been able to hear Ed snarking in the background with someone with a cheerfully accented voice. Those phone calls are likely going to be the last time he hears Ed's voice for who-knows how long. Winry and Ed will spend a day or two together in Central, then Ed will likely head back to East City to report in to Colonel Mustang and Winry will go South again. It will be at least another month—hopefully, though at the rate he's going it's hard to say—before Ed needs maintenance. But Granny's not his mechanic. Winry is. He'll go to Rush Valley, not Resembool. Sure, Fullmetal might make the paper now and then, but it's not the same.

He has _no idea_ when he might see Ed next.

At least he can be sure Winry will call while she's in Central. Too, she'll do her best to wheedle _something_ out of Ed to pass along to Granny, some little snippet Alphonse can overhear so he has a better idea of where Ed might go next. There's going to be a rough patch while they're there, thanks to Granny's silence regarding Brigadier General Hughes. Winry will be sad, but it's not as if she'd had a chance to get to know the man well. Ed, on the other hand?

Well, that's more difficult to determine with what little data Alphonse has to go on. Winry had called the man Ed's friend, but what did that mean, really? Ed keeps people at arm's length, bottling up all the ugly, jagged hurts he's earned until he's left breathless, staring fixedly at nothing with wide, dry eyes. He doesn't let anyone in; it's too easy to be pitied that way, and Ed can't _stand_ to be pitied. He and Hughes might have worked together on occasion, but they were stationed halfway across the country from each other. How close could they have been? How sad might Ed be that this man from Investigations has been murdered?

Alphonse shakes his head. Ed might be sad when he hears the news too, but it won't hurt him. Ed will swallow down whatever small grief he'll feel and move on, just like he always does.

* * *

He's in the Corcoran household when he unexpectedly comes across the Brigadier's name again in the paper. A suspect has been taken into custody, and there's an official picture of her accompanying the front page article. Second Lieutenant Maria Ross is a woman in her late twenties with boyishly short hair and a beauty mark under one eye. She isn't smiling in her picture. She looks severe. She looks like someone who wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger if it came down to it.

"But she was one of Ed's bodyguards," he says. Back when Ed had been hospitalized in Central, Lieutenant Ross and Sergeant Brosch had looked after Ed for weeks. They'd saved his life. She _worked_ for Hughes. Why would she kill her superior officer?

He looks at her picture again, trying to feel something more than abstract curiosity. Ed's friend, the same man who had insisted Winry stay free of charge with his family, is dead because of the same woman who had guarded Ed when he'd been gravely injured. She's going to face the firing squad for this. She's going to die, and in turn someone else Ed had known will die.

This is the closest Alphonse will ever get to knowing this woman, this officer who worked and lived and murdered a good man in far-off Central. A front page article that amounts to a few small paragraphs. He can't summon more than a flicker of disappointment, and even that feels forced. She's just one more name in the paper, one more murderer caught red-handed. The paper might make another mention or two of her after her execution, but this is all she amounts to for Alphonse: the impact her misdeeds and her death might have on Ed.

It isn't much. It's something novel to talk over with Mrs. Morgenstern when he visits her next, at least.

* * *

 **CULPRIT IN INVESTIGATIONS MURDER ESCAPES,** the Times screams the very next day. **KILLED IN STRUGGLE WITH FLAME ALCHEMIST.**

"Oh," Alphonse remarks, reading over Mr. Cartwright's shoulder at the newsstand.

It turns out Colonel Mustang had been transferred to Central earlier this year, and he'd taken to the order to capture the escaped Lieutenant dead or alive rather... pragmatically. Alphonse can almost picture the reporter who typed up this article, giddy over the intrigue and excitement, counting all the cenz they'll earn for the headline alone. The article, while certainly exclamatory, doesn't provide much in the way of detail. Ross escaped with the aid of a large suit of armor but didn't get far before Colonel Mustang cut her down. The suit of armor managed to escape into the night; there's a rough sketch of its fearsome visage included in the article. It's a toothsome, grinning thing, one of its eye holes torn wide by a shotgun blast.

(Alphonse thinks of the fight that cost Ed two fingers. He thinks of the iron slag that used to be two suits of armor puddled in the ruins of their basement. He wonders, he suspects, but he doubts he'll ever know for sure either way.)

Colonel Mustang, the dark-eyed man who earned his infamy in the Eastern Conflict and later dragged Ed out of his wheelchair by force and olive branch both, burned Ross to death in some alleyway. He could have just arrested her, made her face neat justice for her crimes. He could have just shot her. Instead he chose to kill her the same he killed who-knows how many Ishvalans.

Alphonse considers the pink burn on his wrist, a minor cooking injury that had left him in tears when it happened. It had been a raw and stinging hurt for what had felt like forever. He thinks of the terrible display of burns Steffie and Owen Sauter wear on their low days, blackened skin crackling, a halo of fire overtaking their faces. He tries to imagine what it must have felt like to die that way; every inch of her skin bubbling, her lungs scorched breathless, her bones cracking in the heat. Lieutenant Ross probably died screaming.

This is the work of the same man who conscripted Ed at twelve years old—who held out that olive branch when Ed was _eleven_ and only just beginning to recover from the loss of his leg and the failure of his younger brother. Colonel Mustang could have _—should have—_ killed Ed the same way he killed Lieutenant Ross and all those Ishvalans. Burning people alive seems to be the only method the man knows.

Alphonse has had years now to consider whether or not he should hate this man. Ed's made his own opinion perfectly clear with every scathing anecdote he's shared. But Mustang—by the law of the same military they both serve—should have killed Ed for committing the taboo. Should have, yet didn't. Ed seems to have forgotten that, but Alphonse never will. He wishes, far from the first time, that he could see Colonel Mustang again. He'd been shell-shocked back then, so lost, so afraid, that he didn't pay as close attention as he should have. He only has second-hand accounts to form an opinion of the man now, and those are few and far between.

In the long run, of course, it doesn't matter what he thinks. He knows this. He knows there's no sense in holding a grudge against the man for what Ed has had to endure in his time as a State Alchemist. He can't blame the man for Ed's own choices, though at times he wishes the world were so simple. There's no logic in spending the long, long years he has trying to make sense of the Flame Alchemist. Colonel Mustang, if nothing else, is a man who knows how to kill dangerous people the only way he's good for.

(Alphonse wonders if one day Ed will be ordered to do the same thing. To kill someone the only way he's good for. He wonders if Ed already has.)

There's no mention of Fullmetal in the article. No news of Ed at all, nor a phone call from Winry. He hopes Ed didn't get dragged into that mess, hopes that Ed didn't have to watch his superior burn a woman alive.

He spends that night with Steffie and Owen, biting his tongue so as not to ask them what it had felt like to die burning.

* * *

He's there when Winry calls.

She's quiet, her voice damp with tears already shed. She spent the day with Mrs. Hughes and her daughter, Elicia. They baked an apple pie. She'd been practicing, see, ever since the Hughes family let her stay with them, and she'd been looking forward to Mr. Hughes trying it. But now he never will.

"Oh, Winry," Granny murmurs.

She and Ed have taken rooms at an inn not far from Central Command. Ed didn't go with her to visit the Hughes family; he found out from Colonel Mustang. Turns out the two men had been friends since their days at the Academy, which might explain—though not justify—the vehemence with which he had burned Lieutenant Ross. Winry knows Ed had gone out the night Ross escaped and was killed, knows too that Ed came back late, brittle as cracked glass, sure to break if she pressed too hard. She suspects, but she'd asked him for nothing more than he offered.

But it doesn't matter, because Ed's gone now.

"Gone where?" Granny and Alphonse both ask.

Winry doesn't know. Major Armstrong appeared in the inn about an hour ago, _attacked_ Ed before dragging him off under the pretense of getting his automail repaired, never mind that Winry had been standing right there. So maybe Ed's going to turn up in Resembool soon? Or maybe there's something covert that Winry can't be privy to? Some mission Colonel Mustang has tasked Ed with, something that will take him far away from Central as well as any further opportunity to research the Philosopher's Stone.

Hopefully. Hopefully Colonel Mustang will keep him busy for a while, putting Ed to task hither and yon, remind the people of Amestris that a State Alchemist can amount to more than a butcher. Hopefully Ed can busy himself aiding some suffering town, remind its people that they've got at least one alchemist in their corner who keeps to the credo so few others do: _be thou for the people._

Ed does. He tries to, anyway, and maybe that's the best anybody can expect from one lonely kid doing a job even adults flinch from.

* * *

Winry remains in Central. She doesn't have much choice, considering she didn't bring nearly enough money to cover their rooms at the inn. All she can do is wait for Ed to come back. Granny assures her she'll keep an eye out for Ed and Major Armstrong, and promises too that she'll whack them both upside the head for stranding her there.

Mr. McCahan, the station master, always keeps an accurate schedule of the trains moving through the East. He's got to, with Resembool the largest supplier of wool to the military. Second Lieutenant Bartlett comes a-hollering if anything's ever delayed without due warning signed and stamped in triplicate. Mr. McCahan prefers to keep things orderly anyway, so that's rarely an issue. He and the sergeants all get on well, a group of old friends rolling their eyes behind the officer's back.

Alphonse checks and rechecks the posted schedule, then checks it once more to be sure. The absolute earliest Ed can arrive is in two days. He could go back up to Rockbell Automail to wait there and keep Granny company. Or he could wander through the farm houses spaced out in neat squares, tiptoe through tilled fields, make a game of hopping along the fleecy backs of sheep until the herding dogs chase him off. He could go door to door here in town proper, watch the hourly intricacies of a hundred households unfold.

He defaults to worrying, pacing the station, nervous in a way that's impossible to relieve. Owen Sauter and Walt Teller watch him bemusedly from their usual haunts; Owen sat on the station's lone bench and Walt down on the tracks with his arms hooked over the platform ledge. Owen had died by unhappy circumstance, a civilian casualty of a politically strategic attack. Walt had fallen on hard times, and fell again, and once more for good measure, and with no one left to pick him up he threw himself in front of a train in hopes that death would free him. He's still here, certainly, but for as long as Alphonse has known he's seemed to be... not the happiest of all the ghosts, no. _Happy_ is a bad word to ascribe to the unquiet dead. But he smiles more, cracks wry jokes, lays back in the grass and laughs at the flight of birds in a clear blue sky. He was not a happy man, but he is a ghost relieved of all cares.

"You know," Walt says with a grin only partially stifled, "there's this saying about watched pots, lad. You familiar with it?"

He throws his hands up irritably. "Can you blame me? It's been _months!"_

"It's been months before," Owen points out reasonably. Alphonse _hates_ his reasonable voice. He's always right.

"He hadn't lost two fingers before," he snaps. "I can't believe Granny _still_ hasn't asked which ones. I swear, it's her job to care about that kind of thing! I mean, Ed's going to want replacements eventually. It'd be sensible of him to want ten fingers again, right?"

The two men share a meaningful look, all raised eyebrows and pursed smiles. Walt's the first to break, chuckling into the crook of one elbow. Owen does his best to hide his amusement in a coughing fit, clearing his throat before asking, "Now when has your brother ever been _sensible?"_

Alphonse opens his mouth, thinks about it, and closes it again. See? Always right. It's insufferable, is what it is.

Owen pats the bench beside him companionably. "Come on, Al. Relax. There's no sense worrying over what you can't change."

He huffs as he sits down, crossing his arms in a petulant slump. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

* * *

A train arrives that afternoon. He _knows_ there's no possibility of Ed being on it. He's disappointed anyway.

There's the usual flurry of activity, workers unloading and loading heavy crates, the sergeants pitching in with their uniform jackets thrown off and their sleeves rolled up. There's only one unfamiliar passenger that gets out, rolling his shoulders like he's glad to stretch his legs. He's a stocky, red-haired man, dressed in nondescript traveling clothes and carrying a small suitcase. For lack of anything else to do, Alphonse opts to follow the stranger into town.

The stranger finds the inn with ease, giving his name as Navidson when he pays Mrs. Forney for one night's stay. He drops his suitcase off upstairs, freshens up in the shared bathroom, then makes his way to the Pelletiers' café up the street. It's after lunch so there're only a few of the older folk enjoying coffee over a game of checkers by the window where the sunlight's still pouring in, Ms. Thorn scribbling away in her usual corner, and a Xingese stranger who must have come into town while Alphonse has been hovering in Granny's shadow.

"Mister Han?" Navidson asks by way of greeting as he walks up to the other stranger's table.

The Xingese man stands to clasp their hands together, smiling amicably. "Ah, yes. You must be the gentleman Fu spoke of. Though I regret to say he did not provide your name...?"

"That would be because the decision of who was coming out to meet you was rather last minute." They sit. Esther comes by to take their orders, both men ordering fresh coffee and hearty sandwiches. It's only once she's back behind the counter that Navidson leans in to introduce himself out of the corner of his mouth. "Breda."

Alphonse blinks. In his experience with following shifty-eyed strangers who use fake names at inns—which happens more than one would think here in Resembool—they've yet to use more than one at a time. And Breda? That's not a common name so far as he knows; in fact, the only Breda he knows of is the one _Ed_ knows. Is this the same Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda? Ed had described him once as, "kind of a big guy, a lot smarter than he looks," which was about as vague and insulting as he ever got. Alphonse feels a second-hand guilt for comparing this stranger to that charming description, but... maybe?

Mr. Han hums good-naturedly. "A pleasure. Now, I've heard there will be two others joining us?"

"That's right. They should arrive tomorrow afternoon, providing there aren't any delays."

Well, that clinches it.

Mr. Han smiles over his cup. "Then that leaves tonight for the two of us to acquaint ourselves and tomorrow to prepare. It's a difficult journey. Have you ever traversed the Great Desert before?"

Lieutenant Breda shrugs. "Did some cleanup in Ishval after the worst of it was over, if you've got the stomach to call it that. Never been any further east than that though."

"Ah, yes." Mr. Han's cheerful expression dims. He finishes his coffee, knits his fingers together and rests his chin against them thoughtfully. "You understand what's at risk here."

Lieutenant Breda's eyes narrow. "I do."

"And does your employer?"

A snort. "God, I hope not."

Mr. Han chuckles. "No, no. I mean the man with whom the young lord struck this deal."

"He does. Whether or not the 'young lord' does, however..." Lieutenant Breda leaves the sentence unfinished, one eyebrow quirked pointedly. If Mr. Han takes any offense at the scathing tone the other man used, it's hidden by his sunglasses.

"As Fu explained to me, it seems as if the young lord and your, ah, _direct_ employer are cut from the same cloth."

"That so?" Another snort. "Then they're a matched set of dreamers."

Mr. Han smiles, nodding as Esther arrives with their fresh coffees. He waits until she's gone to ask, "And what does it say of those that follow them?"

Lieutenant Breda grins. "That we deserve what's coming to us, no matter how it all turns out."

Curious.

The two men talk until the café closes, drawing up lists of enough supplies for four people to survive a trek into the Great Desert to last a month. Apart from their introduction they don't use names, never mentioning a detail about the other two they're waiting for. Lieutenant Breda offers no specifics about himself; nor, for that matter, does Mr. Han say why he's helping three Amestrians cross the border. It certainly doesn't sound legal. Then again, while the eastern mountain range makes travel difficult it's not unheard of for people to pass through them to avoid unwanted attention. The other ghosts and many older folk all recall how trade with Xing—on and off the table—used to be far more common, back before Ishval.

It keeps circling back to Ishval. The reasons for, the consequences of. Maybe it's just a matter of perspective, or simply geography. Maybe the West is a much quieter place than the East.

Alphonse snorts. Sure, and maybe pigs fly out West too. Maybe there are no orphans, no grieving families, no one begging for scraps, no one afraid of what their neighbors might repeat.

Amestris is many things, but very few of them are good.

He watches these two men make their unhurried way back to the inn, speaking in low voices with the odd glance over their shoulders. Cautious, even here in sleepy Resembool. He frowns at their backs, deciding to leave them be for the night to turn over what he's heard. It's too suspicious, too much of a coincidence to _be_ a coincidence. One of Colonel Mustang's men is named Breda; one of Ling Yao's retainers is named Fu. Both have ties to Ed, who's going to be here tomorrow. But why the hell would Ed need to go on an illegal trek into the Great Desert on such short notice?

* * *

In the morning the two men split the chore of collecting various supplies between them, including five horses borrowed from Mr. Mandelbaum—practically bought outright, with the amount of money Lieutenant Breda handed over with a knowing look. The man quickly proves to be more personable than his gruff demeanor initially suggests; once or twice his sense of humor whiffs, but otherwise he ingratiates himself well with everyone he meets. A real salt of the earth kind of guy, the only thing giving him away as military the haircut. In Ed's words, definitely smarter than he looks. In Alphonse's, he'd bet good money—"It's a figure of speech, Mister Beckenbauer, lighten _up,"—_ that Lieutenant Breda's made plenty of wisecracks at Ed's expense. He seems the type to give as good as he gets.

They reconvene for a late lunch back at the café once everything's been taken care of, speaking in low tones over their meals. At ten to three Lieutenant Breda leaves, walking leisurely—not to the station, but to the road leading south out of town. He sits on the low stone wall, suitcase at his feet and coat folded beside him. Alphonse remains standing, watching the man get comfortable. Lieutenant Breda looks out across the checkered hills, the greening mountains, the town nestled and folded up on itself like a quilted blanket. Amusement tugs faintly at his mouth. "Who woulda thought that brat came from a place as nice as this?"

Alphonse knows Resembool like the back of his hands; its outer beauty and hidden turmoils, its bright summers buzzing with insects and its winters gray with the false promise of snow. He knows its every nook and cranny, its old and its young, its gossip and its ghosts. It's _home,_ inside and out. There are worse places he could have died. "It is nice, isn't it?"

Together they watch the train come into the station, coal smoke streaking in a stiff westerly breeze. The shriek of its wheels and its whistle are calm, reassuring sounds. The train's arrival means that Ed is _back._ Even if he isn't here to stay, even if Lieutenant Breda and Mr. Han intend to drag him out of town this same evening—still. He finally, finally gets to see his brother again.

It's both a mere ten minutes and three thousand some odd years before Ed and Major Armstrong crest the hill. Ed's customary red coat is missing. He would cut an almost intimidating figure in all that black if he weren't standing next to a literal giant.

Lieutenant Breda stands to greet them both with a glib salute. "Hello, Major Armstrong. You too, big guy."

Ed gawks. Major Armstrong's eyes twinkle with mischief.

The three of them catch up on the way back to the café, but Alphonse doesn't hear a word of it. He's too busy turning circles around Ed, drinking in every last detail and ignoring the way he makes the men shiver when he passes through them.

First and foremost: Ed's grown _again,_ the brat. He's a bit taller, noticeably broader, filled out like he's gotten good meals on the regular. He's even gotten a trim to take care of his split ends. Teacher's doing on all accounts. In this regard, at least, Ed looks good. He looks stronger, sturdier, more at ease in his own skin. But detracting from the good is whatever happened in Central. Months after the fact, Alphonse finally gets to see the damage those armor-bound souls did to Ed.

Winry had told Granny that Ed's face had gotten messed up, but she'd never said _how._ There are two scars across the right half of his face; two deep stripes from hairline to ear and inner eye to jaw. They're still a raw pink color, puckered by half-healed stitch marks. When he sneers at a joke Lieutenant Breda makes his expression turns downright ghoulish. There are smaller cuts and scratches on his face and neck, more recently earned, and a nasty bruise over the biggest one on his forehead. He didn't get out of the Devil's Nest unscathed.

When Ed makes a sweeping gesture with his right hand Alphonse drops out of the air, an echo of dismay twisting the space where his stomach once sat. _Months_ after it happened, he finally has an answer to the question Granny never asked. Ed's ring and pinky fingers are _gone,_ as stark an absence as his leg, an empty space where flesh and bone and blood should curl. It's difficult to make out details; Ed's riled up, so once he's finished grumbling he sullenly hunches with his hands in his pockets. But Alphonse does get a good enough look to see that the entire fingers aren't gone, not as he'd been imagining in different configurations on nights without any other distractions. Whatever it was that had taken his fingers had done so at an angle. He's still got a whole joint of his ring finger and a small nub left of his pinky. Not gone-gone, but not enough left to be useful.

Alphonse covers his mouth, pressing _hard_ and wishing he could feel the bite of his teeth against his lips as he swallows all the words Ed can't hear him say. Wasted efforts. He follows after the three of them more meekly back into town, into the otherwise empty café where Mr. Han is waiting with a beatific smile.

"This is Mister Han, the departure coordinator," Lieutenant Breda says.

"Nice to meet you." Mr. Han's face is carefully neutral when he shakes Ed's hand. "Fu told me all about you."

"Fu? Oh. That old guy."

(Alphonse watches the care Ed uses _—has_ to use—to avoid jarring his knuckles, and covers his mouth again.)

Lieutenant Breda gestures to the table. "Let's get down to business about the border crossing."

"Border crossing, huh?" Ed sneers, ghoulishly. "Shame I didn't think to grab my passport while I was getting _abducted."_

Lieutenant Breda and Major Armstrong exchange a weary look. Clearly they're used to Ed's sense of humor and wish they weren't. "Don't be so naive. If you use your passport, they can track you down."

Ed gawks again. "But that's illega—!"

Turns out, Major Armstrong is a lot faster than his size would suggest. He clamps one huge hand over Ed's face to shut him up and all three men practically leer at Ed as they wait for him to catch on. Is it always like this for him? All the grown ups playing their grown up games, waiting for the kid that's forced his way in to learn the rules? These men haven't lost any pieces of themselves. They've got all their fingers, both their legs, no ugly scars twisting their faces, and they've got the gall to look at Ed like _he's_ second rate. Like he's slow, like he's stupid, like he couldn't think circles around them and kick their asses for good measure. Alphonse leans against the wall, watching with a scowl.

Ed tears Major Armstrong's hand away, shoves past him to thump solidly at the table opposite Mr. Han. "I don't believe it! Abduction, scheming, illegal border crossings. I don't know what you're getting me into, but it better not be something stupid. So—" Ed's grin is _wide,_ showing off that ghoulish twist of his face like he's _proud_ of it. "Where are we going?"

The three men smirk, conspiratorial to the point of glee. "To the east!"

* * *

Alphonse had hoped that with Ed and Major Armstrong's arrival they would talk more openly about where—and more importantly, _why—_ they were going. But they're paranoid to an almost ludicrous degree, drawing more attention to themselves for all that they don't say. Everybody in Resembool knows Ed, after all. Small towns are all the same; you can't keep secrets from your neighbors half as well as you think you do.

Ed's been tasked with filling up large canteen-things—Mr. Han called them dromedary bags—at Mr. Mandelbaum's hand pump while the others finish up one or two other last-minute tasks elsewhere. Alphonse pays them no mind. Ed, as always, takes priority. He sits on the edge of a water trough, watching Ed work. He's taken his jacket off, wearing only a fitted black t-shirt that serves to emphasize the muscle he's put on as he hitches a filled bag to one of the horse's saddle. There are more half-healed cuts and bruises on his bare arms. Alphonse mouth twists when he sees them, but he's not surprised. Ed never does watch his back.

Spencer, Mr. Mandelbaum's son, is younger than Alphonse was when he died, still shy of ten by a good margin. He, like most of the younger kids, knows Ed better alone rather than as one-half of the too clever for their own good brothers everyone else recalls with bittersweet exasperation. Nobody really talks about Alphonse anymore, not really. Parents are perhaps more leery of thunderstorms, firmer in their warnings not to go wandering in bad weather so they don't end up like that Elric boy's poor brother.

(He's becoming a ghost story in his own right. It should be so funny.)

Alphonse watches Spencer watch Ed from the safety of the stables for a few minutes. It's kind of hilarious how many kids Ed's age and younger are scared of him. They tell stories to one another, some true things they heard on the radio the other kids didn't, some made up on the spot to impress their peers. Ed's famous and strong and smart _and_ an alchemist, which practically makes him magic in the eyes of little kids. He's a folk hero sprung right out of Resembool's own fields. When Ed's in town kids flock after him like ducklings, shrieking laughter and scattering when he barks at them to buzz off. Ed doesn't notice Spencer, the boy too far off and Ed's distracted with the fastens of another bag. He swears under his breath when his right hand slips. Alphonse fidgets, wishing he could help, knowing Ed would seethe if he really could.

Eventually Spencer musters up the courage to leave the safety of the stables, slinking across the dusty yard on tiptoe. He hesitates about two meters back, chewing on his lower lip. Ed finally notices; his shoulders stiffen, then relax. He puts up with being gawked at for all of five seconds before snapping out, _"What."_

Poor kid just about jumps out of his skin, actually yelping and looking horrified with himself for it. "I wasn't doin' nothin'!"

Ed scoffs, heaving another filled bag over one shoulder with an ease he wouldn't have had the last time he'd been in Resembool. Teacher's hellish handiwork. He doesn't so much as glance Spencer's way as he walks to the horses. "Yeah? Sure seems to me like you're skulkin' around for a reason. Spit it out."

Spencer swallows. "Y-you were on the news again."

"So?"

"Did you really fight a bunch of terrorists?" He sort of slurs _terrorists,_ like he isn't sure how to pronounce it, but maybe if he says it very quickly no one will notice.

"What? I mean, yeah? That was ages ago. Months. They're still talkin' about that?"

Spencer goes from scared to starstruck in the blink of an eye. It's honestly kind of adorable. "It's true?! What were they doing? Were they murderers? Were they huge and covered in tattoos? Did they have guns and knives and stuff?"

Ed rolls his eyes as he finishes hitching the bag up, patting the horse absently when it twitches. "Wasn't looking for tattoos. Guns and knives and stuff though, yeah. Bossman had an automail arm that had both. Cheap piece of shit though. Broke _easy."_

Eesh, but those scars don't do Ed's scary faces any favors. Or maybe they do. It's definitely not a face anybody would want to see pop up in a dark alleyway.

Automail can have _both?"_

"If you're compensating for something, sure."

Alphonse sighs. "Don't be crass, Brother. He's _nine."_

(The irony isn't lost on him. In his defense, he would be fourteen if he hadn't died and there is a _world_ of difference between nine and fourteen, thanks very much.)

Spencer hops out of Ed's way as he goes back to the hand pump, staying out of arm's reach. All the kids know Ed won't hesitate to smack them upside the head if they get in his way. "So why'd you hafta go take them out?"

"They hijacked a train to get at some bigwig officer. Wanted to do a hostage swap, the bigwig for some of their guys that got arrested previously. Not like that woulda worked out for 'em even if I hadn't stepped in."

"Wait, train?" Ed's right; that was months ago. Why's he talking about that instead of Dublith?

"Train?" Spencer's nose wrinkles. "I thought they were in a bar."

"Like you even know what a bar is, squirt. The hell are you talkin' about?"

"I do too!" Spencer does not go on to describe a bar, briefly looking panicked as he seems to realize that he doesn't, in fact, know what a bar is. "It's what they said on the radio! You got in a big fight in a bar and the Fuhrer was there and you killed all those terror-guys!"

Ed—

—stills.

He closes off, eyes finding something ugly in the middle distance between the water trough and the Mandelbaum house. His jaw works, his grip tightens on the hand pump's handle so much the metal squeaks. "Wasn't me," he croaks. "I didn't kill anybody there. That was all—them. I was just... I was in the neighborhood. Got caught up in it, that's all."

"Was it those guys who messed up your face?" Spencer asks, oblivious. Stupid kid. Stupid, sheltered, _normal_ kid.

Ed's eyes are flat bronze coins. "...No. Some other guys kicked my ass before that. Had it comin', I guess. Got in over my head."

"Did it hurt?"

"What?" Ed blinks, shakes his head, whips around to put his ghoulish sneer on full display. "Course it fuckin' hurt. What kinda question is that? Go bug somebody else already, I'm busy."

Ed turns back to the hand pump and starts filling the bag. Spencer however, stays put. He looks like he'd about shriek if Ed so much as went _boo_ at him, but he stays. Some of the other kids probably goaded him into this. Poor kid. "Wh—" He freezes when Ed tenses, dares to keep going when Ed doesn't do anything else. "Where are you going?"

"Not your business, squirt. Fuck _off."_

Spencer's well of courage finally runs dry; he makes a beeline for the stables at top speed. There's the faint sound of hidden kids giggling. Alphonse shakes his head, smiling at his brother. "You could try to be a little nicer to them, you know. God know why, but they think you're cool."

Ed mutters to himself, too low to be heard over the spilling water.

* * *

It's evening by the time Ed and the others head northeast out of town, the sky turning brilliant shades of orange and pink in the west, their shadows growing long before them. Alphonse follows as far as he can. When he reaches the invisible wall he presses against it, straining his ears until the last faint sound of the horses fades away. He stays long after dusk has fallen, long after their shapes have been swallowed up by the growing night.

Ed will come back. He'll come back safe. Whatever's going on, Ed will come back. He has to.

* * *

The first week after Ed leaves is notable only for one evening. Alphonse, wanting a little raucousness after too many quiet nights at Rockbell Automail, goes down to the tavern for a few hours. He claims a corner of the bar nobody's sitting at, looks attentively at the familiar faces playing card games and throwing darts, laughing at dirty jokes and sharing gripes over the day's work. Tim and Nancy, the owners, share quiet looks as they work that speak volumes; they've been married so long they rarely need to speak to have a conversation. Alphonse loves coming by after closing time to watch them quibble over who's taking out the trash or wiping down the tables with a single waggle of an eyebrow and a fond kiss on the cheek.

"Hey," Emma Adams barks out suddenly over the general hubbub. "Hey Tim, turn that up."

Tim obliges, reaching over near where Alphonse is perched to turn up the battered radio.

Turns out there's been an attack on one of the military labs in Central. Two men—one wearing a white mask over his face, the other in a full suit of armor—were pursued into the Third Laboratory by none other than the Flame Alchemist and a small team. It's not clear what these men wanted but none of the scientists suffered more than some rough handling. There's vague mention of Flame and one of his men being injured, but no details are provided and none of the MPs on scene were willing to answer any of the reporter's questions. There is, curiously enough, one comment given. None other than Fuhrer Bradley himself says, _"The good Colonel Mustang and his men had things well in hand before I happened by. Rest assured that these intruders have been dealt with."_

Well. _Dealt with_ doesn't leave much to the imagination, now does it?

Alphonse spends that night up on the roof of the bell tower, the highest point in town. He watches a thin cloud cover scud across the star-dusted sky, fantastic shapes there and gone at the whim of a wind he can't feel. It's probably warm out, with the frog song rising up from the riverbank as loud as it is. It's a good night for stargazing, but he's distracted. There are too many questions buzzing like mosquitoes in his head.

A suit of armor. Not exactly a common thing to see. Was it one of the same empty suits that Ed had fought in some other military facility? Who was the man it was working with? Why had they gone into one of the labs? Why had Colonel Mustang been after them? Why had the Colonel sent Ed and Lieutenant Breda into the Great Desert? If they'd been in Central would the Colonel and the other subordinate been hurt? How badly hurt are they? What would happen to Ed if Colonel Mustang died?

Alphonse sighs. He ought to know better by now not to have all the answers.

* * *

Another week passes. There's nothing else unusual in the news, no interesting gossip, no sign of Ed. It all returns to routine. There are brief, dull reports on all the latest political upsets. The body count in Liore ticks higher and higher. There's been another bloody skirmish on the Cretan border. Terse discussions with Aerugo that resolve nothing. The ongoing tensions with Drachma despite the non-aggression pact. Old news. Amestris has always had a bite as bad as its bark.

He checks in with Granny a few hours each day, listening in on phone calls from Winry when he catches them, relieved that she hasn't gotten into any trouble. She visits the Hughes family each day, babysitting Elicia when Mrs. Hughes' shifts at the hospital run long. She had lunch with Miss Hawkeye a few days after the incident at the Third Lab. There are more MPs running around Central than the last time Winry was there, but if Hawkeye knew why she didn't say. Winry sounds bored and frustrated, but at least she's not in danger. That seems to appease Granny, but they both fret over Ed's continued absence.

Alphonse spends the days as he always does; people watching, bothering the odd pet, gossiping with the odd ghost. There's nothing else to do but wait.

"I'm _sick_ of waiting," he complains to Mrs. Morgenstern one afternoon. He's sat on the edge of the river, curled up with his knees in his chest. Mrs. Morgenstern is out on the water, twirling slow circles in a waltz for one. Her heavy skirts—the reason she drowned that day so long ago, for she insists she was an excellent swimmer despite her age—spin to and fro as she changes directions. She leaves no ripples in her wake across the water's surface.

There's dry amusement in the sidelong glance she shoots him. Weariness too. "Chin up, dear. It's a fine day out."

She doesn't tell him it will get better. She doesn't tell him not to worry. She doesn't tell him to quit whining. She died 41 years ago, far from town on an empty stretch of river between two farms. She knows better than he does how long a day can last.

When she holds out one hand in invitation he joins her, and they while away a few hours dancing. It's much better than sitting there feeling sorry for himself.

* * *

Fifteen days and fourteen hours after Ed left, the nine a.m. train pulls into the station five minutes later than expected. Alphonse is in a field not far from the road south of town watching a few near-spherical little birds hop about in the dirt, pecking hopefully here and there for a wayward bug to eat. One of them flaps furiously, giving itself a dust bath and making the others all chatter. Idle curiosity makes him glance at the dissipating streak of coal smoke, but he stays put. Bird watching is more interesting than watching tired adults haul crates back and forth.

But fifteen minutes or so later he hears footsteps, unhurried and unencumbered. Granny's next out-of-towner isn't due until Saturday, she's not expecting another shipment until Monday, and the townsfolk don't normally make the trek all the way out this far. An unexpected visitor? He springs up out of the tall grass to see who it is.

There's a man walking up the road, tall and broad and blond. A man wearing dusty traveling clothes and a pair of glasses that flash in the bright sun. A man with a neatly trimmed beard and long hair gathered back in a long ponytail. A man Alphonse had assumed he would never see again.

"...Dad?"

* * *

 _A/N: It is at this point I feel like I should mention that's Ed's characterization—and injuries—are heavily influenced by '03-verse as well as metisket's demon alchemist series._


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Well! It's certainly been a while, huh? Sorry, sorry! I've had, mm, quite a time since the last update, some of which I've decided to touch on in the end note as I feel like it's relevant to the story itself. However, you're here for square dad times, of which I bring over 19k words worth! As an apology for taking almost an entire year to update, and thank you for your patience!_

* * *

It can't be.

It _can't_ be.

Dad ran off. Dad left them. Dad died penniless and alone, with neither identification or cenz on him, and so was buried in a pauper's grave in some far-off corner of the world. Once upon a time—when Alphonse had still been alive—Ed had declared this to be the only acceptable reason for Dad's continued absence. It's a sad scenario to be sure, but it's one Alphonse reluctantly agreed with, then and now, if for no other reason than that it's the only one that makes _sense._

More recently—and more hardened by the world and all its indifferent indignities—Ed considers Dad—"That _bastard"—_ the type of creep to leave a string of broken-hearted single mothers behind him. Granny had all but boxed his ears the one time he'd said as such near her, and Ed had fled back to East City in a huff that same day. He didn't come back until his automail was practically a dead weight dangling from his stump, and then it'd been Winry's turn to berate him senseless.

(Ever since then Alphonse has tried not to linger on the bitter thought. He likes to think Mom had been a better judge of character than that, and even if she hadn't been there's no way the Rockbells would have ever opened their arms to a sleaze like that. Better he be dead, taken by the same illness that took Mom, taken by a terrible accident, taken by a petty thief with an itchy trigger finger. Better orphaned than _abandoned.)_

Dad is dead and _gone._ He _has_ to be.

But there's no mistaking him.

Alphonse has seen this same face smiling sheepishly out of aged photographs a hundred times if he's seen it once. He knows this is the same face found in the family portrait pinned to the corkboard in the Rockbell's house. Ed had wanted to get rid of that picture but Granny wouldn't hear of it, so he'd compromised by covering the half of it with him and Dad entirely with pictures of Alphonse. That photograph is what, thirteen years old now?

And Dad _still_ hasn't changed at all.

Without warning the little flock of birds all scatter in a burst of shed feathers and furious wittering. Alphonse shields his face out a habit not yet broken, only lowering his arm once the sound of flapping fades. The man—Dad, it can't be, it can't be, it _is—_ watches them fly off with an absent-minded furrow to his brow. Alphonse is too far away to see what color his eyes might be behind his glasses, but he _knows_ they'll be the same rare yellow as Ed's are and his were and something about that _stings._

"You can't be here," he whispers aloud.

The man—Dad—moves on, heading up the dirt road out of town. It's baffling to see him in motion. There've been too many years with only photographs to know him by, too many years speaking of him in only the past tense. This—

This doesn't feel _real._

He follows, half-expecting the broad-shouldered man to be a figment of his imagination, half-hoping he'll wink out of sight at any moment and things can go back to normal. He's almost— _offended_ by the appearance of this absurd apparition, this inane interruption to his perpetually dull purgatory. He no longer expects surprises from any corner but Ed's, and even Ed can be fairly predictable in his own off-kilter way. In the years since Mom died, the only family he's had is Ed and Winry and Granny. Everyone else has gone away, taken away too soon, Dad in that number. But here— _impossibly—_ he is again.

"You _can't_ be here," he repeats, more adamantly this time. "This isn't—it can't actually be you. There's no way you're really _Dad—"_

The man stops, frown deepening as he turns back to regard the town proper laid out behind him. Alphonse follows the line of his gaze on reflex. It's a nice view from here, sure, but he's seen it a thousand times before and he'll see it a thousand times again. He looks back at the man in time to see him startle like he's just remembered something urgent. Whatever it might be doesn't matter a whit to Alphonse, of course, so he shelves that instinctive curiosity and glares up at him.

"No," he says, churlish and childish and damn near _pissed._ "This is stupid. This is _bullshit._ Why'd you come back _now?"_

The man says, "Alphonse."

The man—Dad. _Dad_ isn't looking at the town proper. He _isn't._ His gaze is lower, focused on something far closer. But this is an empty stretch of dirt road, no houses nearby, nothing interesting to catch the eye at all.

There's nothing here except _him._ And Dad just said his name.

He shakes his head like a dog. No. No way. He—he heard wrong. He imagined it. There's _no way_ Dad could possibly know he's standing here. Dad's alive; the fresh footprints in the road are proof of that. Only another ghost could see him, so there's _no way Dad said his name—_

Dad breathes shakily. Dad has the _audacity_ to say, "It _is_ you. Oh, Alphonse. What happened to you?"

He can't speak. He can't even move. If he does either thing he's sure this impossible dream—nightmare?—will fall apart. Dreamstuff and wishes, all of it useless to a dead thing like him.

This can't be happening.

Can it?

(Oh god, please. Please let this be real.)

"You—" His throat isn't real enough to choke, but he feels the need to clear it and start again anyway. "You can see me?

"Of course I can," Dad says.

"He shivers. That—that was a reply. A real reply, not happy coincidence. A _real_ reply from a _living_ person. "Y—you can hear me too?"

"Yes. Yes, of course I can. Alphonse—"

 _"Stop."_

Dad stops. His hand has twitched from his side, reaching out, reaching like he means to touch Alphonse. A hug, or to ruffle his hair, or whatever small gesture fathers do to sons they haven't seen in ten years. Dad doesn't know. Dad hasn't realized.

"I'm dead," Alphonse chokes out. "I died. Years ago. You shouldn't be able to see me. _No one can."_

Dad's hand hovers a breath longer, then falls. His overcoat hisses against itself. _Hush,_ it says. _Hush._ "What happened?"

Everything. Too much. Too many years. Too many moments Dad should've been here, should've helped them, should've taught them to know better, should've _stopped them—_

"You left," he musters. "You _left."_

"I..." Dad seems to straighten. To harden. He recovers from his shock, and becomes so still he could pass for a statue. "I had to. I was always going to come back."

The laughter that bubbles out of him is nothing short of arsenic, bitter and foaming. He's as surprised by it as Dad seems to be. "Back to _what?_ There's nothing left!"

Dad looks away from him, out across the rolling hills and the silver ribbon of the river bifurcating Resembool proper and Resembool rural. He looks to where their house once stood, to where there's only a tree half-blackened and a shrug of weedy ruins. Dad looks, and looks, and after a heavy moment he asks, "Where is my house?"

Not "our." _His._

For a moment Alphonse hates this man just as much as Ed seems to. He hates him for his arrogance and his ignorance, his narcissism and his dismissal of the only living family he has left. Alphonse would be _sick_ with fury if he were still capable of feeling anything, and so he sees no reason to be kind when he snarls, "Ed burned it down after he became a State Alchemist. You _left._ Mom _died—"_ He clenches his fists raising his voice to be heard over Dad's sharp inhale, _"—I_ died. Ed's gone. There's nothing left for you here, so _why'd you come back?!"_

"I—I didn't..." Dad steps back from him, shaking his head. He wavers; unmoored, floundering. "I didn't know. I don't—I'm sorry. Alphonse, I'm sorry, I don't..."

Alphonse knows he should do better than sling accusation and demand answers. He should _be_ better.

But it's too much.

He can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Anger, black and stormy, fit to rival Ed at his most unhinged and spiteful, all but overwhelms him then. For all that he has no throat he still finds himself choking on bitter grief for what _should_ have been.

(If only Dad hadn't left. If only Dad hadn't left when he did. If only he'd been here when Mom got sick. If only he'd been here when Mom died. If only he'd been here when Ed first voiced the idea of human transmutation. If only, if only, _if only—)_

He jabs a finger up the road. "Go talk to Granny. You owe your old _drinking buddy_ a visit, at least. She'll be happy to fill you in on everything you _missed."_

"Alphonse—"

But he kicks off of the ground before Dad can finish, uninterested, _unable,_ darting away. He doesn't care where, so long as it's somewhere he can be alone, away from living and dead both. He _needs_ to be alone. He needs time to calm down. He needs time to breathe for all that he can't breathe, to find his center the way Teacher taught them to. He needs to find some distance so he no longer feels like the stupid little boy asking Mom when Dad will come back. Mom's _gone,_ dead twice over—

(And guilt _gnaws_ at him, as cutting as it had been the day he watched Granny bury the thing they'd made.)

—and Dad is—

Dad is—

Dad's _alive._

Dad's _come back._

None of this makes any sense. None of this fits the tidy little afterlife Alphonse has resigned himself to; watching the rest of his family live out their lives and pass away without ever knowing some shade of him was still here, crying out and going unheard.

From the moment he realized even Ed couldn't sense him he's known he'll have to watch the three of them die. He's been dreading the inevitable report of Ed's messy death in the news for—for too long, really. Granny's only getting older. Already there have been a few occasions where he found her napping and thought the worst before some small twitch or snore relieved him. Winry's the only one he expects to see 1920, and beyond that besides. She'll finish her apprenticeship in Rush Valley and no doubt follow a similar path as Granny did at her age. She'll travel for a few years, or many years, but eventually she'll come back to Resembool to keep Rockbell Automail going strong where it's needed most. Maybe she'll marry one day. Maybe she'll have a child of her own, or even children. She and Granny have talked about that possibility once or twice, and Alphonse had laughed at the way she'd wrinkled her nose. But it's a nice thing to imagine on her behalf. A lineage that will last beyond her own small lifespan, the Rockbell name carrying on.

(Winry doesn't really strike him as the type to take her husband's name. Not with the weight Rockbell carries in the world of bioengineering.)

He's seen how the other ghosts all keep wistful vigil over the generations that have survived them and come after them. Watching them watch the living is the closest thing to a mirror he's got, and it's a sobering reflection. Sobering, lonesome, and _yes,_ more than a little creepy, but it's _all he's had to look forward to._ He'd _resigned_ himself to a state of uninterrupted observation, of decades and eventual centuries of quiet obsession.

But now here's Dad again, come back from the metaphorical rather than the literal dead to throw an enormous fucking wrench in everything!

He's had to watch Mom die twice already. He's going to have to stand over Ed's grave one day soon. He doesn't want to have to do the same for Dad too.

* * *

In hindsight, he realizes he ought to have gone to Rockbell Automail too. He could've heard word for word what Granny's spitting in Dad's face right now, found some petty gratification in whatever justified vitriol she's slinging. But it's...

It's too much.

All of it is too much. Dad here, alive, _seeing_ him. If he were so inclined he could ask Dad any old question that comes to mind and _be answered._ He could tell Dad all the nasty, cruel things Ed might snarl if he were here in his stead. He could fill Dad in on every nasty, cruel detail Granny might be so inclined to gloss over out of kindness toward her old drinking buddy. He could do more today than he's been able to since that nasty, cruel night, and it's—

It's too _much._

He's retreated to the cemetery for now. Not many people come out here to visit their dearly departed in the middle of the day, nor are there any ghosts perched on their headstones either. There's only him and the encompassing, comforting silence of a summer morning not yet overwhelmed by buzzing insects or birdsong. There's a breeze, heard rather than felt as it hisses through grass in need of a trim. There's the crinkling of the paper wrapper on a bouquet of flowers on a nearby grave _(infant son of Filip and Katerina Danchey, born September 18, 1913)._ The sun is high. The sky is clear. It's probably warm out, not that he can feel it. He can't feel any of it; not the sun or the wind or the grass or the fabric of the clothes he died in. He can't feel _anything,_ numb in a way the vocabulary of even the most precocious of ten year olds can't express.

(It still manages to surprise him, sometimes. How much dying has hollowed him.)

Dad didn't know.

All these years since Mom died, all these years since they tried and failed so terribly to bring her back, and _Dad didn't know._

What kind of world can _allow_ that? There must have been a thousand opportunities that Dad could have saved them from years of grief and pain and loneliness, a thousand days he could have picked up the pieces of their broken home before they could cut themselves to ribbons on the terrible hope of _what if._ A thousand chances at salvation, but Dad hadn't _known_ he was needed here. All these years, Dad thought a happy home waited for his return. He'd thought Mom perfectly fine, taking care of their too-clever-for-their-own-good sons, living in a home Ed hadn't burned down just so he could keep treading water all on his own.

It's too much.

Better Dad dead than _ignorant._

He sits at the foot of Mom's first grave, curled up with his arms wrapped tightly around his knees. Granny's been by recently; the headstone looks freshly scrubbed of moss, the nearby grass pruned of weeds, a small bouquet of white gladioli only just beginning to wilt beneath _Beloved Mother._ He sits, tightly wound, listening to the wind. His thoughts are a perfect match to the rushing, senseless noise.

He's overwhelmed. Overstimulated even, if such a word can be applied to someone who only has sight and hearing left of his senses. Either way, this tight knot of mute panic is a sensation he'd nearly forgotten the feeling of; the sticky way it clings, the choking way it squeezes. Funny, how quickly things fade without new stimuli.

Fucking hilarious.

He doesn't know what to do. How to react. How to _act_ in the first place. There's someone new _and_ alive to interact with, and it's Dad. Can Dad see other ghosts, or just him? If it's only him is it a matter of blood that lets him? If that's the case, then _why can't Ed?_ If Dad can see ghosts, period—why? How? Is it something that can be taught? Would he be willing to teach Ed? Could Ed be restrained from punching Dad long enough to learn?

(Mm, that last one probably not. Granny though, she's impressively patient. She'd been putting up with Ed and Winry's constant fighting for years now. She deserves a sainthood for that alone, honestly.)

Time passes. Hours, probably. The shadows of the headstones are beginning to stretch thin and dark when he hears footsteps on the dirt road skirting the cemetery. He doesn't look when the footsteps soften on the grass, coming closer. He doesn't look when a man's broad shadow spills through him, darkening his own edges so that, for a moment at least, he almost looks solid in the burnt afternoon light. He doesn't have to look to know who's there. Funny, how he already knows—remembers?—the sound of Dad's footsteps.

Nothing is sad for a long time.

Alphonse chooses to break the silence first, lifting his gaze to Mom's headstone. Her name, her birth, her death. The pretty but meaningless words carved beneath those facts to sum up her few years. 26 had once seemed like such a mature and far-off age. Funny too, how perceptions can still change even when you can't get any older.

He asks, "Why can you see me?"

Silence.

Then—

A soft, stifled sob.

He twists around to look up at the man, expecting...

He doesn't know what to expect anymore. All of his expectations have been wrung out and frayed to meaningless scraps in the wake of Dad's return. But tears? Dad's face contorting as he sinks to his knees? Dad tearing his glasses off to scrub his eyes? Dad, overcome with grief?

Shame is a salve and a salt both. Alphonse finds it easy then, a relief even, to let his anger and resentment bleed away. He was cruel to think so poorly of Dad, and an idiot too.

By the time Dad quiets his face has become a splotchy mess, eyes red-rimmed and a few strands of his hair clinging to his damp cheeks. Hair and eyes the same color as Ed's. The same color Alphonse's were too. He looks nothing like the man in Granny's old photographs, nor like the closed-off paper cutout Alphonse had built in his head out of secondhand stories and fuzzy memories. Dad looks miserable and wrung out. He looks like anybody would when they'd been told their whole world had crumbled when they hadn't been there to do anything.

Dad paws his eyes dry, slipping his glasses on again. "I didn't know," he says hoarsely. "I didn't. I thought she'd be... I didn't realize I'd been away so long. If I'd known—" He takes a shuddering breath. "I would have come back. I swear to you—"

"I believe you," Alphonse says.

"I'm sorry. Truly I am. _Trisha—"_ Dad's whole face crumples.

Alphonse considers him for a moment. "You never got any of our letters, did you?"

"...No."

Well. That's alright then, isn't it?

"Why can you see me?" He asks again.

Silence.

Then—

One large hand reaches out to cup the empty air where Alphonse's shoulder hunches. He grimaces, pulling away. "Stop that. I can't feel it."

"I..." Dad lets his hand fall back to his lap. "I've been able to see the dead for a long time. A _very_ long time."

All those old photographs. Decades passing Dad by without touching him. _"How?"_

Dad breathes.

"I'm a monster."

* * *

It's dusk by the time Dad finishes his story. His impossible history. Lost Xerxes and the Philosopher's Stone. The Dwarf in the Flask. Unwanted immortality at the cost of so many dead. Centuries spent hiding away in Xing, learning the breadth of his curse. Learning too, everything he could about every single soul caught inside him. The sheepish admittance when pressed for details that the Xingese think rather highly of the man that came to be called the Western Sage. Friends come and gone, come and gone, come and gone. Growing weary of a reverence he'd never asked for nor sought to keep once given it. Going west, and farther west still. Decades spent wandering until Pinako strong-armed him into a friendship that led him following her hangdog to Resembool. Building a house, meeting Mom, falling in love.

On and on, and every word as impossible as the story all told is absurd. But it's true. It has to be. What reason would Dad have to lie to him? _He's_ hardly even real.

"Are you alright?"

Alphonse blinks. Dad's moved to lean against Mom's headstone, slouched like it's become too much to support himself. Like he'd be leaning against her, shoulder to shoulder, if she were still here to be part of this. Dad seems thinner for the telling, scoured and sore, but relieved all the same.

Alphonse musters up a smile. "Yeah. It's just... It's a _lot_ to take in."

Dad's own smile is the one from the old photographs, small and sheepish, like he knows he's the butt of a joke he can't take offense at. "I'd understand if you didn't believe me."

"I didn't say that." He leans back on his hands, lets his elbows fail. He stares up at the sky, painted deep purple and burnt orange, too early still for the first dusting of stars. "It'd be pretty crazy to believe you," he says. "But I mean, I'm a _ghost._ It's... it's just a lot. That's all."

He falls quiet, turning everything over in his mind. Dad stays quiet too. Giving him space and time to reconcile. It's an unexpected kindness, and he feels a pang of shame for assuming it should be unexpected. Granny never shied from telling stories about Mom and Dad. He should have kept listening even when Ed turned tail and ran.

The sky deepens. By now the wind has calmed. No one else has come by, nor are their any houses within shouting distance. He tucks his chin to look at Dad discreetly. To drink in the realness of him through his eyelashes. Dad sits so still, carved from stone again. He's powerfully built, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. He'd look like any older farmhand if he weren't dressed like a scholar, his clothes well-tailored and well-cared for. Under a patina of dust his shoes look hardly broken in. His beard is neatly trimmed, though both its styling and his long hair are, from what Alphonse has gleaned reading magazines over any number of shoulders, out of fashion. There's a touch of crow's feet to his eyes, laugh lines bracketing his mouth, a roughness to his large hands that are at odds with how eloquently he speaks. He sits with one wrist perched on one knee, his other leg stretched out before him.

He sprawls the same way Ed does.

"So," Alphonse begins slowly. "You can see me because you're a Philosopher's Stone?"

"That's right."

"Do you know about the other ghosts here?"

"I do."

"Private Shriver? Mister Teller? Nurse Nichols?"

Dad nods. "And the rest, yes."

"Mister Sauter died after you left," Alphonse points out doubtfully, sitting up. "Mister Cuttler too."

"Sauter," Dad says, turning the name over in his mouth. "I know that name."

"Steffie Sauter's one of the other ghosts you'd know. She died in a house fire in 1870. Owen was her husband. He remarried eventually and took over his family's—"

"Boutique," Dad finishes. "Yes, I recall now."

"Did you see him when you got off the train? He died when a group of Ishvalans came here and bombed the station. That was near the end of the Civil War."

"I think I must have. I didn't realize he'd died."

Which begs the question, "What do ghosts look like to you?"

"Like anyone else, more or less."

When the Sauters get upset, they burn. Mr. Teller falls apart in a terrible streak of gore. Mrs. Morgenstern and Mr. Cuttler pale and bloat, spilling a poor shadow of foamy water. Private Shriver's face goes to ruin, and Ada gets flushed and waxen as her fingernails and lips turn blue and her voice goes hoarse and wrecked by the cough that tore her lungs apart. Uschi, Mr. Tafano, and the scritch-scratch ghosts are all too far gone to really show how they'd died, so that just leaves Mr. Beckenbauer as the only one of them unscathed by the heart attack that took him too soon.

Well, maybe. Alphonse only ever looks the way he did the night he died, at least to his own eyes. He's seen the others' gazes drift when he gets in a snit about something (usually Ed), tracing the edges of something he can't see. He's never had the courage to ask what they might be seeing.

Dad sighs, slipping thumb and ring finger under his glasses to rub his eyes. "And Cuttler?"

"Gil," Alphonse offers. "He was a soldier. Granny outfitted him with below-the-knee automail a long time ago. He drowned in a flood in the year the Civil War ended."

"Ah," Dad says. And that's apparently all he has to say.

Alphonse narrows his eyes at him, scrutinizing, calculating. He's tempted to ask—of course, it doesn't matter what he wants anymore.

But—

But it _could,_ at least with Dad. He could ask questions, and be answered. Who's to say he'll ever get an opportunity to talk to another living person again? Why is he hesitating? He ought to just _ask—_

"What—" He winces anyway, and the wince turns into an irritable grimace at his own hesitation.

Dad's smile is gentle. Reassuring without words, the glint of his eyes nearly a tangible weight. Something about being looked at with so much—intent, forgiveness, _love—_ leaves Alphonse almost dizzy. "It's alright. Ask whatever you like."

Alphonse looks away, out across the rolling hills of Resembool. His home and his purgatory both. The shadows have all been gently smothered by nightfall now. In distant fields lightning bugs are beginning to blink, blink, blink. Calling out to each other in a language he can't understand. "What's it like not being able to die?"

Dad hums. Thoughtful rather than offended as Alphonse had half-feared he'd be. He seems like the type of man to always turn the other cheek no matter how hard he's pushed. Patient. Well, with how old he must be—as old as the scritch-scratch shadows? _Older?—_ patience is something that he must have had to learn or break otherwise.

"Well," Dad says softly. "It's... I'm not going to lie and say it doesn't come in handy. But it's not worth watching everyone I love die before me."

"Like Mom. And me."

Dad's face threatens to crumple again, but his voice remains even. "Yes."

Sympathy pangs in the place Alphonse's heart once beat. He thought he'd become accustomed to being dead. The emptiness, the loneliness, the boredom. The threat of inches shaved off his reach every year until one day he's as trapped in as narrow a space as the rest.

Resembool is a little town with little worries and even smaller aspirations. It's unlikely this will change no matter how many decades pass. Only the faces, the fashions, and the brikabrak inside each home are sure to change as generations come and go. He's realized this, rejected the finality of it for as long as he could, but ultimately he's _resigned_ himself to joining the others in their quiet madness. Mr. Tafano, snarling at anyone who comes too near his tree. Ada feverishly taking inventory in the clinic's supply room. Mr. Beckenbauer stood in the corner watching his great-grandson, tapping out a noiseless pattern on his thigh from a time before the radio and the gramophone, a song from when he still lived and breathed and laughed, tapping and tapping and—

Clinging to their coping mechanisms for lack of anything else to hang onto. Breaking under the weight of their own inanity all the same.

His own inhuman existence has only lasted four years, and some days he feels driven half-insane by it. He does everything he can to stave off imagining the centuries that await him still, obsessively follows the townspeople so as not to think of his own inexorable winding down, tolerates even the dullest conversations and radio broadcasts so he doesn't think of the inevitable day Ed will go where he can't one last time, for good.

He wrenches himself out of that dark turn. There are better things to focus on right now. "I don't remember," he admits. "Dying, I mean. All I can remember is our transmutation circle going... wrong."

In the failing light he can just make out Dad's frown. "How do you mean?"

"The color," he says, and describes the event as best he remembers. It's a truncated summary, all the blood and terror wiped carefully away because Dad doesn't need to hear those details. Not when his frown deepens after hearing only the barest outline. "Like I said, I don't remember what happened to me. Everything went dark, and the next thing I was alone in the basement, apart from—from what we made."

"I'm sorry," Dad says after a moment. "I should have been here. To stop you from trying, if nothing else."

Alphonse nods. He'd thought the same a hundred times if he'd thought it once since that night, and now he knows for sure that Dad would have stopped them, if only he'd known he needed to. "Mom used to tell us you were coming back," he says. It's petty to say so, even cruel, but someone's got to. It might as well be him.

Dad does the right thing by flinching. "I... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Alphonse, I—I thought you'd all be fine without me here."

They'd thought so too, even after Mom died. So much for that.

He floats easily to his feet, slipping his hands into his pockets as he nods toward Rockbell Automail. "You should head back. Granny'll be expecting you for dinner."

* * *

It's strange, watching Dad and Granny have dinner together. How they so easily share new stories and reminisce over old ones. They've been friends for decades and it shows in how easily they fall back into finishing each other's sentences, in how naturally they move around each other, in how Dad knows where the cutlery drawer is and which cupboard Granny keeps her shot glasses. It's strange, because for the first time since he died a living person _knows_ he's there. He feels almost—guilty whenever Dad's eyes flicker in his direction. He feels like he's intruding on something especially private, like he's eavesdropping on the adults when he ought to be in bed. It makes him feel more like a kid than he has in—years.

(Granny _certainly_ wouldn't have recounted that particular story about the man she'd bested in a drinking contest when she was 22 if she'd known he was there, listening in. At least not without a significant amount of censoring.)

He sits in a corner out of the way beside Den, who remains a coiled, growling knot all evening. The usually even-tempered dog doesn't so much as flick an ear at the sound of his cajoling. "What's the matter with you?" He asks in a huff, running his hands down and through Den's raised hackles. "Easy boy, easy."

Dad's eyes meet his again; when Granny's not looking he twitches his shoulders in a mute apology that baffles Alphonse for a moment until he puts two and two together. Half a million souls squeezed into one man's body, and dogs are sensitive enough to hear ghosts... well. Alphonse might not be able to hear so much as a whisper out of whatever might be in Dad, but clearly Den doesn't want any part of it.

"And I suppose you'll be needing a place to stay while you're in town?" Granny asks with a sly look over the rim of her glasses. Dad in turn smiles wanly.

"Oh, I wouldn't want to impose. The inn will be—"

"Don't even think of finishing that sentence." She grins at him, sharp despite the whiskey she's put away. "The nice guest room belongs to Ed these days, so you'll be in the new one. You've got good timing, you know; I freshened it up just the other day."

The new guest room is Auntie Sara and Uncle Yuriy's old bedroom. Granny, pragmatic as always, had boxed up their things while he and Ed had been in Dublith, selling or freely giving away anything that would do better in someone else's possession. She'd bought new linens, hung up a few paintings bought from a couple local artists, but to Alphonse's eye all that hard work carved something intrinsic out of the Rockbell's home. The room is too ascetic now, too barren. It's nice enough, but there's nothing homey about it at all.

Dad leans back, dismayed. "I couldn't possibly—"

"Oh, look at the _time,_ you daft old man. Do you really want to drag Reuben and Starla out of bed now?"

"You might as well give it up," Alphonse says over Den's surly growling. "There's no winning an argument with her about anything."

This time when Dad's eyes flicker in his direction there's a faint smile to his mouth. "...Thank you."

* * *

In the morning Dad goes for a walk after breakfast, nodding discreetly when Alphonse asks him if it would be alright if he came along.

(How strange, to feel the need to ask permission for anything. How gratifying, to be _answered.)_

It looks like it's going to be a clear day, presumably still chilly out as Dad takes his coat from the stand as he leaves. A strong breeze comes and goes like it can't make up its mind, sheeting through the fields along the road. There's a riot of birdsong that breaks apart to angry chattering as Dad passes beneath them. Alphonse watches a particularly furious male scold Dad from the safety of a fence post, all its iridescent feathers puffed up and gleaming in the morning sun. As scared of Dad as Den is, who'd spent breakfast backed into the corner with his teeth bared and his tail between his legs.

"That must get old," he says, nodding at the bird when Dad only looks at him curiously. Had he really not noticed?

"Oh." Dad chuckles. "It can make things awkward, sometimes. There's nothing I can do about it though."

"Can all animals sense you? What you—are, I suppose?"

"Just about, yes."

"Can people? Granny didn't seem to notice anything weird."

"It's not common, but it's possible." Dad's gaze travels east, his eyes heavy with memory. "In Xing some are naturally attuned to the Dragon's Pulse, while others dedicate their lives to learning the flow of it. Alkahestrists, warriors, monks; any who wish to know the body's strengths and weaknesses see this understanding. These individuals are able to sense the presence of people and even animals around them by the energy flowing through their bodies. So too, they can sense things that go against that natural flow."

Alkahestry had been one of many topics Dad had spoken of yesterday, embarrassed as he'd glossed over the Western Sage's influence on the Xingese practice. Until yesterday Alphonse hadn't even known alchemy of any kind was practiced east of the Great Desert. Then again, what he knows of Xing could fit on an index card with room to spare. Here in Resembool there's been virtually no influence from any quarter but its own. Sure, there are a few odds and ends to be found in a number of homes, purchased by traders from before the Civil War or brought home from larger cities. Some tapestries and small statues, a handful of silk scarves and embroidered slippers. Little things easily fit inside a suitcase. A touch of the exotic in otherwise firmly rural Amestrian homes.

Their home hadn't been different in that regard either. For one, Mom had owned at least one Xingese-styled dress. And for another—

"You had books written in Xingese," he says, faltering as he tries to drum up details from the hazy memories of their home. He can only reach back so far before it becomes so much dreamstuff and hearsay.

"Yes," Dad replies softly. "I did."

"What? Oh! Oh, no no, Granny saved those. There's a crate full of your things in her basement."

It was the only other time Alphonse knows for sure she went to their house after she'd buried Mom again. He knows she'd done it while Ed had been off in Central earning his pocket watch and Alphonse had been clawing uselessly at the invisible barrier all around Resembool. He hadn't learned she'd taken anything until months after, when he'd found her one evening paging through one of Dad's strange old books. As far as he knows Ed still has no idea Granny salvaged anything from their house. Ed had never asked Winry to collect anything he couldn't make use of.

Dad's expression softens. "Did she? I'll have to thank her for that."

"After you figure out a way to explain how you know she did it," Alphonse points out wryly.

Or maybe she'd write it off as one more of Dad's harmless oddities. God knows she puts up with some odd habits from him, and accepts him for the whole of it with hardly a question or wary side-eye. But then, she's known him for so long; either she already knows all about him or trusts him enough to leave well enough alone. That's just how Granny is, honestly; whenever she sees someone hurting she'll offer them a good meal and her dry humor, and a bed to sleep in too if they need it. She helps others because she can't bear to sit idle, never mind a person's personality or history. No wonder she and Dad get on so well.

It's only as they crest the hill to where their home once stood that Alphonse realizes Dad wasn't walking for the sake of some fresh air. He slows, stops, hangs back as Dad presses on to the soot-blackened fence. Shame curdles within him, visceral enough he very nearly feels it twist a memory of his stomach and winch his throat tightly shut. He tangles his hands together as if he might wring out some fitting justification for everything that's happened these last ten years. He wants to say, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we both are, we just wanted to see Mom smile again, I'm so fucking sorry—_

But what good would that do?

So he stays silent, choking on guilt he doesn't know how to express to a man he barely knows.

In the end, Dad doesn't ask any questions. He doesn't hurl accusations or fall to pieces again either. In the end, Dad wipes his eyes and turns away from the ruins of their home without saying anything at all.

* * *

"So," Granny says after lunch, and the way she _glowers_ as she cleans her glasses on the hem of her apron makes Alphonse flinch clear across the kitchen. "Do you plan on sticking around?"

Dad doesn't even bat an eyelid at the ice in her voice. He must be hell in a poker game. "No. I have unfinished business elsewhere. I'll be leaving in a few days. Sooner, if you prefer."

She harrumphs. "Is this business of yours going to take another ten years to sort out?"

"No."

Unimpressed, she puts her glasses on and seems to leave it at that, right up until they've settled on the porch with fresh cups of coffee. Then, in true Granny fashion, she goes in for the kill. "I expect Ed to turn up soon, if you can afford to stay a few more days."

Dad tenses. It's subtle, but Alphonse had caught the grimace with which he'd looked at the few pictures of Ed up on the corkboard. He gets it. There's something off about Ed's smile these days, something that sets a set of teeth on edge, and that's not even taking the new scarring into account. One look's enough to know Ed's been through too much for somebody who's only fifteen.

Granny, shrewd as she is, doesn't miss it either. "That's right. I heard from Jeannie Mandelbaum that Ed and a few other odd characters went out East recently. Practically bought all their horses, and cleared out the general store too."

Dad looks nervous for a moment, then his face smooths back into the familiar mask of passivity. "East? Not to Ishval, I trust."

 _"Ha!_ As I hear it there's not enough _left_ of Ishval to still call it that." Granny sneers. She's spent plenty of evenings down at the tavern exchanging vaguely treasonous opinions with the other old timers. Almost no family in Resembool escaped the War unscathed. Far too many headstones were planted in the cemetery during that time.

"No one's sure where they went," she continues, "Only that it was likely they'd be sleeping rough and bringing along quite a lot of water besides. There's nothing beyond the mountains but desert, of course, and all that sand's going to be hell on Ed's automail without proper protection. Makes you wonder why he tore off without visiting me first, doesn't it?"

Dad hums, giving away nothing, and Granny barks laughter again. There's a game happening here Alphonse knows neither the rules nor the score of, but he's pretty sure Granny just took the lead.

"That was some time ago," she adds. "He ought to be back any day. So long as he intends to come back, anyway. I'm sure there's quite a few things he'd like to talk to you about."

Alphonse can't help but snort. "That's one way of putting it."

Dad's eyes flicker between him and Granny dubiously. She grins.

"Ah, like you deserve anything less and you know it. _He_ deserves some answers out of you, don't you think?"

Dad sighs, and nods.

* * *

There's a comfortable lull the three of them fall into. Routine settles in with its usual mute and mule-headed determination. Having Dad around again, however temporarily, becomes normal.

Turns out, Dad and Granny don't need to say much out loud to understand one another just fine. Alphonse has seen the same familiarity among a lot of the older folks in town; in long-time spouses that hold hands after dinner and have whole conversations without saying a word, and old friends that developed elaborate bartering systems built on decades of inside jokes and IOUs. Dad and Granny know each other inside and out so well that a decade apart has done nothing to diminish their laughter and harmless ribbing.

It makes Alphonse wonder, the second night after Dad's return long after he and Granny had gone to bed, how time might touch him as it spools by. If he'll fall apart like Ada, or if he'll still be able to muster up a joke for Mrs. Morgenstern when loneliness drags her down to the bottom of the river. What was Mr. Tafano like when he first died? What other ghosts huddled in the hills of Resembool long before a town was ever built here?

He wonders what things will be like fifty years from now, and a hundred, and on. The stories he'll tell Uschi and Mrs. Morgenstern and Mr. Cuttler of the going-ons in town. What other unlucky dead will wake to find themselves mute and invisible but to a handful of people who'd died long before. He thinks of the jokes that lose all humor when explained to someone who hadn't been laughing along from the start. The petty slights that no number of years can soothe, the bickering that will continue out of habit long after the first argument's been forgotten. The private things kept between two people; not out of a need for secrecy, but out of a soft desire to keep something good going a little longer.

Well. He's already doing all of that, isn't he?

Fifty years, a hundred, and on. How will Resembool change in that time? Cars, certainly. Plumbing and telephones and electricity in every home too. Paved roads, at least in the town proper. What else might come and go or turn the town on its head?

He's not sure he'd admit it out loud, least of all to Dad, but he's... kind of excited to see what the far-flung future might bring, for all that he'll never get to do more than observe it.

"Pinako," Dad murmurs, drawing Alphonse out of his musing. He and Granny are sat at the dining table, going through a new shipment of approximately eight thousand sizes of screws. She hums absently, so Dad waits until she marks down a number down on the notepad next to her coffee before asking, "Why isn't there a headstone for Alphonse?"

Alphonse _flinches._

There's no way Dad doesn't notice.

"...It was Ed's decision," Granny says. Her tone is neutral, her narrowed gaze anything but. "He's convinced he can bring Al back one day, you see."

Dad says nothing, though his eyes narrow in turn.

Granny nods like he's confirmed something anyway. "Yes. He's gone—mm. A bit _strange,_ after everything. Joining the military didn't help that any, but I think in some ways it might have been the best thing for him. Lord knows he's never minded anything _I've_ tried to tell him. Of course, for all that I might think he sounds half-cracked whenever he gets going on all that—" Another nod, this one at the corkboard where all the pictures of Alphonse are prominently on display, "—I never could make heads or tails of alchemy. Maybe he really is onto something. Or maybe not. Maybe he's just dead set on killing himself."

Alphonse flinches again, unable to stifle the miserable sound that escapes him, _hating_ to hear his own morbid fear said aloud by someone so steadfast and reassuring as Granny. If she's thinking the same thing, then there really is no doubt about it. Ed's going to die trying, and there's not one thing any of them can do to stop him.

The seconds stretch. Dad remains silent, passive, counting out screws as if he hadn't heard her.

Granny's measured look deepens to a glower that could curdle milk. "The way _I_ see it," she says archly, "Ed needs someone else he can blame before he runs himself aground. And the way _I_ see it, you're the best candidate for the job. Being his father and all."

"Blaming me won't change what happened," Dad replies coolly.

"He's _fifteen,_ you idiot," she retorts. "Do you think he cares? All blaming himself for Al's death has gotten him is a short leash and a trail of gossip rags hounding his every step. No boy his age should go through half of what he's endured, and all without more than _me_ left to try and talk sense into him whenever he manages to limp all the way out here for maintenance." She takes a swig of coffee like she wishes it were something stronger, then sighs out her anger until she's just—tired. Old and tired and afraid of standing over another grave of someone she loved. "I've known you for a long time, Hohenheim. I know you're a coward and a bastard to the core, but you _don't_ get to run from this. I'll tie you to the goddamn bed frame if I have to."

Dad's eyes flicker to Alphonse as the silence rings. Then he looks away, hunching a little, grimacing at his own coffee mug squeezed in his two large hands. "I know," he says. "I... I know. I'll talk to him."

On the one hand, Alphonse is glad to hear Dad's willing—more or less—to at least stay long enough for one conversation with Ed. On the other hand, _oh,_ but that won't go well.

"He won't appreciate a thing you have to say," Granny warns. God, but Alphonse loves her.

"I wouldn't expect him to," Dad replies, and Granny nods like he's passed another test, and that's the end of that.

* * *

One of Granny's out-of-towner customers arrives the next day. Krista Lusk's service dog Charlie likes having Dad around even less than Den does, so Granny gives Dad a wad of bills, a grocery list, and a stern order not to come back until suppertime. She locks the front door after she's shoved him through it for good measure, and Alphonse smothers his grin behind one hand as Dad's left blinking in the mid-morning glare without even his overcoat.

"You better hop to it," he says. "She hates it when people don't do as she says."

"I know," Dad says, but he's smiling too. It seems to come more naturally to him with every passing day. Granny's a good influence on him. He ought to stick around for that alone, though Alphonse is beginning to suspect the man's as bad as Ed is at taking care of his own needs before anybody else's. Exhibit A: Dad remains standing on the porch like he doesn't have a lengthy honey-do list burning a hole in his pocket, staring down the dirt road with another one of his impossible to read expressions. His eyes flicker behind his glasses; left, up, then down in a grimace. Chasing after ghosts again.

Alphonse waits. A couple of days of—acclimating, is perhaps the best word—to Dad's myriad eccentricities has been long enough to learn that waiting is better than hounding Dad when he gets distracted like this. It must be terribly noisy in Dad's head with half a million souls clamoring around in there. He's only one more ghost vying for attention.

Eventually Dad blinks, looking down at Alphonse with a shrug of his broad shoulders in a gesture that'd look like nervousness on anybody else.

(Will Ed's shoulders ever be so broad? Will Ed live long enough to find out?)

"So," Dad says bracingly, "You seem to be adjusting well."

Alphonse stares.

Dad stares back.

The unspoken part of this observation—that he's adjusting well to _being dead—_ sits between them like overripe roadkill that Dad doesn't appear to notice at all. Alphonse does his best not to laugh out of sheer disbelief. "You—you're not very good at talking to people, are you?"

Dad shrugs again, slipping his hands into his pockets as he goes down the porch steps. "Not really, no."

Oh boy. Well. Dad's _trying,_ which has to count for something, right? He ought to at least try to meet him halfway.

He steps lightly into the air, staying a few feet off the ground to be at Dad's eye level. It'll be a little less awkward if they happen across anybody on the walk into town this way. Dad looks at him as he floats an easy half-circle around him, eyebrows raised but otherwise perfectly content to give him all the time he needs to sort his thoughts out. "It's not what I expected—" he begins, then corrects himself. "Well, I don't suppose I ever expected anything, really."

Organized religion and all its trappings is a concept he's never put much stock in, too much of a scientist even as a little kid to find comfort in the plans of some abstractly benign celestial being. Especially not any thing that had the audacity to try and justify orphans. He never chafed as brazenly as Ed did when well-meaning people told them God took Mom for a reason, but he'd bitten his tongue every time he'd held Ed back to avoid causing a scene.

"Ed and I, we never talked much about what we thought might come after death. We wanted there to be something, and it made sense to us that there would be more to a person than their physical composition, something more fundamental than a series of chemical reactions. But we never believed in all that, you know—" He waves his hands vaguely to encompass all the fluffy clouds and harps horseshit, as Ed would absolutely call it if he were here for this conversation. He's a little tempted to say the same, but he doesn't want to put his foot in it if it turns out Dad can still somehow muster faith in a higher power after everything he's endured.

"I mean, what Pastor Darbinian talks about sounds nice, sure, but it never sat right with me, and Ed—" He can't help but laugh a little, and is gratified that the corners of Dad's mouth curl upwards rather than down. "Well, if God's real, I don't think Ed would be happy with anything less than a chance to take Him in a bare-knuckle brawl."

Dad's mouth twitches outright, but he doesn't say anything yet.

"We believed there had to be some spark, divine or otherwise, something we could reach and subsequently bind to the body we designed. I guess that's a long way of saying we liked a good ghost story as much as anybody else, but we never believed they were real. Not really. So to wake up like this after we tried bringing Mom back..."

He shrugs off the old horror, the old terror, the bleak realization that he'd died—

Well. It happened, and there's nothing left for him now but the after party.

"It took some adjusting," he adds slyly, and grins when Dad has the decency to look chastised. "But the others all helped me understand what had happened."

Dad hums, almost starts saying something, then notices the cart coming up the adjacent road as they approach an intersection. He purses his lips into another bland smile that doesn't really seem to mean anything at all. Omar Springer gawks openly at Dad, barely reacting to his polite greeting. His son Rick, turned fifteen not even three weeks back, shows off the gap in his grin where Ed knocked out his tooth years ago as he waves. It's only after the dust of their wagon's passing has nearly settled that Dad speaks.

"There's a girl," he says. "A little younger than you. There used to be a gristmill out on the edge of the western woods—"

He's surprised enough to drop out of the sky. "You don't mean Uschi, do you?"

Dad stares. "You know about her?"

"I _know_ her," he corrects, momentarily baffled when Dad only stares harder. "Wh— _oh._ Right. You wouldn't—I mean. I've got a much wider range of movement than the others."

"Really," Dad says.

"Yeah. I can reach just about anywhere within Resembool's borders. I"m not sure why, but I think it's because of how I died—" Oops, maybe he shouldn't be _quite_ so glib about that. "—uh. I'm the only ghost here who, uh. Was in an alchemical accident?"

 _That's_ a stretch by every definition, but for all that he's certain it wasn't a rebound that killed him he still doesn't have a clue what really happened. It's likely he never will. If he's honest with himself he's still grappling with that. Not just not knowing, but being completely incapable of taking any steps towards knowing _eventually._ He's intangible, invisible, mute, useless, _pointless—_

Well. He'll get over himself one day.

"I see," Dad says, looking more uncomfortable than ever.

Desperate to pave over _that_ particular gaffe Alphonse offers, "I had no idea anybody used to live out there until I met her. I don't think anyone else does either."

Dad is quiet, again, as he so often insists on being. Then he surprises by offering more than his usual wry noncommittal replies. His tone turns wistful as he speaks, in the same manner as Granny and other older folk in town whenever they reminisce about the days when they were young and the world's hardships still seemed worthwhile. "Pinako and I first came across the gristmill not long after I bought my house here. She was livid that I discovered something she'd never known about so quickly. Of course, I only knew something was there because I saw Uschi flying above the treeline."

Alphonse bites back the urge to ask what year that was because—

Because Uschi can't go that high anymore. Sometimes, not often, he finds her floating on her back, pressed flush to the invisible ceiling that keeps her trapped beneath a clear view of the countryside. She cries if he tries to distract her; this terrible _keening_ that guts him straight through. When she gets like that... well. He's learned the hard way that it's best to let her grieve alone.

"Do you—?" He falters. "I mean, I've never asked outright what happened to her. She gets upset whenever I bring up anything about—that—for either of us. Do you know?"

"It was before I came to Resembool," Dad replies, instead of _It was before my time,_ which is what any normal person would have said. Of course, he's older than the entire _country._ Talk about putting things into perspective. "I did some digging after I'd spoken with her a few times. The first settlement was located on the western end of the valley. It was all but destroyed in a fire. The Žitnik's gristmill was the first to burn down." Dad hesitates, mouth thinning, eyes flickering. "From what I gathered, her family was targeted by the other villagers."

 _"What?_ Why?"

The bland mask Dad's proven to be so keen on wearing slips; for a moment his eyes _blaze._ "For being different. Why else?"

Alphonse—

—stills.

He _knows_ how isolated he is. How isolated his childhood was. As he is now, he hears and sees all the things the adults do their best to keep from children, yes, but Resembool is only a village, and not a very large one at that. More than that, it's thrived the way it has for generations. It's comfortable with itself, all its people familiar and familial and wary of upset. It's a place founded on traditions and expectations. Worse, it's insular. He knows there had been two Ishvalan families who had lived here before the Civil War that are gone now. The why and how behind their absence is a mystery he's never heard spoken of since his own death, which in some ways is a red flag all on its own. There are a handful of other races and ethnicities besides pure Amestrian here still; there are mixed families, and families that don't attend church the same day as everyone else, and plenty more who'd spit in God's Eye if they believed there was an Eye worth spitting at. He knows those people are looked at askance, but he's never sensed any _malice._

But that isn't the same thing as acceptance, is it?

Broadly speaking, Resembool is as uniform as the minuscule military unit on the northernmost edge of town. The same families have lived here since its founding, the population bolstered by farmhands and soldiers and the rare handful of those who wanted and could afford a fresh start away from the hustle and bustle of city life. He's heard stories of what the Civil War cost so many other places in Amestris, Ishval most of all. He knows, perhaps better than most, that a human life is worth more than the sum of what can be measured and weighed.

Still. Still, it's disheartening to be told that the cruelty and ugliness of the world at large festers here too. That people, long gone now, but people just like those he's gotten to know so well since his death, could look at another person and think something positive could come from murder.

"That's awful," he says.

What else is there to say?

* * *

The townsfolk all circle Dad like a flock of vultures as soon as he steps foot onto Main Street. Word of his return has clearly been making the rounds, and from the toothsome expressions flashed at him it's not likely all opinions are positive. Not that Alphonse can blame any of them; he and Ed were hardly the only ones to assume Dad had died, and most of the adults are appalled that their parents never married to this day. Scandals, however small, get their mileage here.

Mrs. Cartwright hails Dad from the newsstand with an artificial smile and a lot of arm waving. Alphonse doesn't even bother to stifle his laughter as Dad visibly steels himself before approaching. It'd be nothing short of delightful to watch her put the metaphorical thumbscrews to Dad, but she'll be at it for roughly forever. He can happily spend that time better elsewhere, so he leaves Dad to suffer on his own and hangs a left onto Miron Street.

He goes past the smithy, a rush of clanging and billowing black smoke as always, heading for the poorest part of town. Cris Street, all its houses settling crookedly into their foundations, are some of Resembool's oldest homes. Few of them are kept up half as well as those just a street over. No part of Resembool is _impoverished,_ not really, or at least not to Alphonse's limited experience. Whole swaths of Dublith had been run to ruin by the on-and-off troubles with Creta and the terrible toll the Civil War had wrecked. He knows that for all that Resembool had been targeted directly once, it survived almost entirely unscathed.

That's not to say there aren't those hurting here. Alphonse has gotten to know everyone in town intimately in the years since he died; some better than they know themselves. He's learned that even in sleepy little villages there are people that hurt in ways there might be no way to ever fix.

A prime example of that—and the reason he's gone onto Cris Street—is George Petrescu. Mr. Petrescu only left the Eastern region once in all his 64 years, and that excursion left all but five of his company dead and his leg and shoulder riddled with shrapnel. All he'd gotten out of continuing the family tradition of military service was a few shiny medals, a lifetime of chronic pain and debilitating nightmares, a failed marriage, and a disability paycheck that just about covered the cost of whatever booze might pickle his liver fastest. Once upon a time he'd been a happy husband and loving father; Alphonse only knows he'd had twin girls once upon a time because he's seen the photographs Mr. Petrescu fishes out when he gets too deep into his cups. He's watched the man's face soften to a spongy mess of grief over what he'd had and thrown away more times than he cares to think, and every time he steps inside this ramshackle house he walks away sick with shame and second-hand embarrassment for all that this good man had once been.

He comes back anyway, because no one else bothers to intervene anymore.

Once upon a time, Mrs. Petrescu—Claudia, and Alphonse only learned her name through tutting gossip one night when Mr. Petrescu had embarrassed himself once again two years ago at a wedding he hadn't been invited to—had grown sick of her husband's unpredictable rages and called it quits after he'd hurt one of their girls. Molly or Holly, Alphonse has never heard which, only that Granny had needed to get involved, and that things had grown g rim enough that Mrs. Petrescu had decided that the shame of raising her girls on her own elsewhere didn't outweigh whatever love she still harbored for the good man her husband had once been before the military had torn him to pieces. She'd left long ago, before Ed had been before, before even Aunt Sara had come to Resembool to apprentice under Granny. Mrs. Petrescu had left with her girls and all their belongings and gone north, and no one's heard anything from them but hearsay and supposition since.

There are a number of people in town with long, lonesome histories and no one living left to lean on. God knows Granny's three-quarters of the way to joining that number, for all that she'd deny it if Alphonse were capable of pointing it out to her. He worries after her, but at least she still has Winry calling two or three times a week. There are too many unlucky few who don't receive so much as a letter from those who might feel some obligation to keep in contact, but don't for their own reasons. Alphonse has come to know too well since his own death that there are worse things in this world than being invisible, things worse even than being dead. He could still be alive, still be heard and seen and everything living entails, but instead be purposefully shunned by his fellows. He could be shameful. An embarrassment. Someone the whole town pretends its hardest to never notice, never mind he could be stood right in the center of things screaming his head off.

Mr. Petrescu is one of those unlucky few, but it's not his fault. Not really. Not in any way that counts.

Alphonse passes through the front door of Mr. Petrescu's ramshackle home, all peeling green paint and sloughing apart roof. He squints into the darkness until his eyes recall he doesn't need to falter in the half-light. Old habits, still unbroken. Inside is the usual heap of detritus; stacks of broken, useless things that inch higher toward the cobwebbed ceilings with every passing year. Deeper inside the house is a bedroom, and buried in that dim room is a bed—that must surely reek to high heavens if the scrunched-nose expressions everyone makes around Mr. Petrescu when he fumbles his way out of his house is anything concrete to go by—and in that bed is the man of the house himself.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," Alphonse tuts to himself. "I leave you alone for three days and this is what you do with yourself?"

There's no reply, of course, not that Alphonse expects one. Besides, from what he's gleaned Mr. Petrescu isn't a chatty man even with people who are willing and able to have a conversation with him. He doesn't even spare more than a few grunts for Mr. McElligott or the gaggle of teenagers that run the register at the General Store, and they're the ones he interacts with most not that the Pugh family won't let him patron the tavern anymore.

"Come on now, rise and shine!" Alphonse says, hopping over a pile of something-or-other to kneel on the bed, wiggling his fingers menacingly for his own small amusement.

It's the same thing he does for Granny, and for a number of others besides. Those lonely living souls who sink too deeply into maudlin rituals that hide them away from friends and neighbors alike, clinging to the outskirts of their own lives out of something adjacent to stubbornness and second cousin to habit. He's invisible and essentially mute, sure, but a cold spot like him can be a right tenacious little shit when he's so inclined. He grins as he sticks his hands through the blankets and wriggles them around until the lump on the bed grunts, grunts louder, swears even louder than that, and finally sits up.

Mr. Petrescu might have been handsome, once. Now he's a gray and pallid thing, gaunt in some places and flabby in others, covered all over in bristly gray hair that looks as coarse as steel wool. He snuffles and hawks up something thick into the trashcan by his nightstand. He reaches for the bottle by the full ashtray, scowling when it turns out to be empty.

"Good," Alphonse says. "You ought to get some sun, you know. It's a lovely morning out. A bit chilly, I think, but you'd be the better judge of that. Why don't you go and find out?"

The man looks around his dirty bedroom blearily, grumbling something that's more vowels than consonants and completely unintelligible for it. Then finally he fumbles for his cane and hoists himself to his unsteady feet. It always worries Alphonse terribly, those first few hobbled steps that seem to cost Mr. Petrescu more than he can afford. Sometimes he yelps like a wounded dog and sinks defeated to the floor, and those are days that are better left smoothed over and forgotten. Today is a better day. Not good, no. It would be unkind and inaccurate to ever say Mr. Petrescu has good days anymore. But he gets to the bathroom and sorts out that business and gets dressed in clothes with no obvious stains, and none of it with more than a few yawns and sleepy grumbles.

Alphonse leaves the man to all that personal stuff, more interested to see what the rest of the house looks like. He hasn't been by since Dad turned up and he's curious to glean what he can about what Mr. Petrescu's been up to. Hopefully more than dulling his senses with drink, and if he's not in much pain today that might not even be a fruitless hope.

The curtains are all drawn tightly shut so only thin outlines of gray light spot the living room and kitchen. Spots of reflected light glitter damningly throughout every room he peers, bottles left to gather dust where they'd been dropped. It looks like the house is dry, though there perhaps something was squirreled away in the bathroom because Mr. Petrescu starts to whistle as he gets dressed. That's alright. Alphonse can understand needing a little help to get a hard thing done.

Mr. Petrescu totters out of the bathroom, snuffling some as he paws his wet hair out of his eyes. Alphonse steps close to wriggle his cold hands up and down the man's spine until he jerks absentmindedly toward the couch to fetch an oversized knit sweater. It might have fit him well once, but that would have been years ago. Still, it's another layer to warm him, a bit of armor against the cutting gazes of his neighbors. It's better than nothing.

All told it must take twenty minutes of nagging before Mr. Petrescu gimps outside, but that's the hard part handled. From here Alphonse can trust the man to make his way onto Main Street. There the usual gossips will cluck their tongues to see him buying booze so early in the day, but there will likely be food bought besides and if it's Mr. McElligott or Ilya Jarrett running the register at the general store they might coax him into getting a few other necessities besides. If Alphonse hadn't been by today it's likely Mr. Petrescu would have gone without anything until nightfall, if he'd decided to leave his house at all.

It's the little things that matter. The little things are all that are left to him, and to Mr. Petrescu, and to who-knows-how many people out in the world. He has to appreciate the good he can still do, no matter how small it might be.

The truth of the matter is that there's a kernel of unlovely familiarity he sees in Mr. Petrescu. There are times the man barks insults at his fellows, scowling thunderously when no one has the spine to give him the fight he's angling for. There are times the man can't leave his bed for the pain he's in, bitterly cursing as he kneads the knotted muscles of his thigh. There are times when he stares unblinking at old photographs of what he'd had once upon a time, and his eyes become two nickel coins in his lined face. There are times the man rouses from another terrible nightmare sobbing apologies to the dead, and the rest of those nights are spent huddled near a lantern or sat on the rickety chair in his backyard watching the stars wheel overhead.

How can he see the rut Mr. Petrescu has slowly but doggedly dug himself into and not see a funhouse mirror reflection of what Ed might become one day? If Ed hangs on half as long as Mr. Petrescu, will he retreat into a bottle for comfort? Will his myriad hurts twist him hunchbacked and limping even on his good days? Will he become too bitter and sharp of edge for anyone to consider him worth befriending?

It is so, so easy to see the worst of what Ed might sink to in what Mr. Petrescu's life has quietly fallen apart to. He hopes things will improve for the man one day, that one of the living will take pity on him, that they'll take the time to help him when the scrap of pride and stubbornness he buoys himself with won't let him. Alphonse doesn't want to be the only one who cares. Not when he can do so little to help. He wants there to be others for Mr. Petrescu to lean on, and Ed too, and all the lonely hurting souls beyond his reach.

* * *

He catches up with Dad in the general store—it _is_ Ilya running the register, that's a welcome relief—and perches on the counter to watch as the pair haggle through Granny's list. Then it's to the café for a coffee and sandwich to go that Dad takes to the station. There's a terrible moment where Alphonse briefly thinks Dad intended to leave _now,_ but then he recalls the long-since memorized train schedule. There's no train due until tomorrow, and it won't leave until the day after that. He watches Dad give Mr. McCahan and Ms. Seelin a bland smile as he passes them at the ticket station, then settles himself on one of the white benches on the platform.

"Well, there's the talk of the town himself!" Mr. Teller calls out cheerfully, floating up off the tracks to land beside Alphonse. He hovers his hand over Alphonse's head, as close as he can get to ruffling his hair.

"Is it as bad as that?" Dad asks.

"If _I_ know the hens are all a-flutter, then you know it's worse."

Dad grimaces. "What seems to be the common thread?"

"Oh, they're all right _scandalized,_ of course. Aston had to break up an argument before it came to blows. I heard it secondhand, of course, but I think it had something to do with your imaginary fortune again."

Dad tuts, though it might be because he spilled coffee on his fingers. "I thought Pinako had taken care of that nonsense."

"Yes, well, you've not been here to remind folks of the facts stood right in front of them. Welcome back, by the way. Missed your arrival with all that hubbub with the hogs."

"Aston, you said?"

"Aston Clark. That'd be the painter. Or, well, I don't know if he'd picked that up yet before you left."

"What the _fuck,"_ Alphonse says loudly. Both men blink at him like they'd forgotten he was there.

 _"Oh,"_ Mr. Teller says, looking guilty.

"Mm," Dad agrees, making a face like he thinks he should be unhappy his youngest has figured out foul language in his absence, but also knows he doesn't have any right to chastise. Good thing he realized that, because at this current moment Alphonse is discovering heretofore unrealized depths of outrage that might rival Ed and Winry _both_ at their most rancorous.

He turns the full force of it on Mr. Teller. "You _knew_ he could see us?!"

"I thought you knew," Mr. Teller says defensively.

 _"I think I would have mentioned it if I did!"_

So it turns out _every_ ghost that was around when Dad left Resembool knew he could see and hear them, and _none_ of them thought this an important enough fact worth mentioning to Alphonse in the years since _his_ death. Alphonse spends several minutes telling Mr. Teller—and Mr. Sauter too, when he decides to turn up with an _altogether too cheerful_ wave greeting for Dad like there's nothing absurd about greeting a _living_ person—exactly what he thinks of this slip-up, raising his voice every time the man ineffectively hides his grin until he's shouting. Dad, as ever, appears unaffected. He eats his sandwich. licks his fingers clean, and only then bothers to intervene.

"I don't think it's something that would come up too often."

Alphonse whips around to give him a distinctly unimpressed glare. "I'm _pretty sure_ it should have." It's not like there's a wealth of gossip for the dead in Resembool to busy themselves with! It would make sense for one of them to mention to Alphonse that his own father would be able to see him if he weren't dead and did end up coming home one day, as turned out to be the case. Torn between keeping the glare on Dad—who's proven thus far to be wholly harmless, and apologetic to the point of second-hand embarrassment—and Mr. Teller—who won't stop grinning like the Winter Solstice has come early, the bastard—Alphonse opts for the middle ground of glaring at Mr. Sauter.

"Hey," Mr. Sauter protests, holding up his hands defensively. "I died _afte_ r he left. How was I supposed to know?"

Alphonse goes back to glaring at Mr. Teller. "You didn't tell him either?"

"Nope," Mr. Teller says, entirely too giddily.

He throws his hands up. "What's the _point_ of you!"

Mr. Teller pretends grave offense, clutching his chest like Alphonse has put a knife through him and making a whole laundry list of ludicrous faces. _"Ah!_ D'you hear that, Hohenheim? No respect! No respect at all. What did that ol' Pantheress teach him for manners without you there to mind her, eh?"

Dad hides his amusement behind his paper cup. "Pinako's always known better than to listen to my advice."

"Shut up," Alphonse says, stamping on the urge to strangle—nobody, yes, but that's only on a technicality he hasn't figured a loophole around. "Stop. For—god, seriously? Don't make _jokes._ I've been dead almost four years and _nobody_ thought to mention my own father happens to be an—an _immortal medium?_ What the fuck!"

"Well hang on now, scale it back, lad," Mr. Teller says, turning his delighted grin on Dad. "What's this about being immortal now?"

"He's immortal, he's ridiculously old, _we can talk about that later,"_ Alphonse snarls. "The subject at hand right now is that you _knew_ he was weird from the start and _never said!"_

Mr. Teller continues to be an _absolute bastard_ and waves his hands dismissively at Alphonse without taking eyes off Dad. "Hush it, you. _You_ might be able to talk to any ol' stiff you please, but shy of a funeral you and Owen are the only ones I get to talk to, especially after this one took off without so much as a warning! I never mentioned his, whatever, _ability_ I suppose, because I figured the same as you; that the ol' bastard was _dead."_

"Hey," Alphonse says feebly, and only when it becomes apparent Dad's not going to speak up in his own defense. Being untroubled by some persnickety dead guy insulting him suggests he won't mind Ed calling him the same in a few days, which is good, though time will tell how well being a Philosopher's Stone will protect Dad's teeth.

"I don't make a habit of announcing what I am," Dad says, neutral enough that Alphonse can't tell if he'd like it if Alphonse stopped going on about it or doesn't care if he starts shouting it from the rooftops. Whatever, it's not like more than four people'd be able to hear him if he did that.

"What _are_ you, anyway?" Mr. Sauter asks curiously. "It's been—what, a decade since you left? And you haven't aged a day!"

"Looks the same as when I was still alive too," Mr. Teller adds pointedly.

"It's a long story," Dad admits. "I'm sure Alphonse would be happy to share it on my behalf another time. I'm afraid I need to g—"

"Granny's stuff can wait," Alphonse says. Dad raises his eyebrows doubtfully. _"It can_. She only tossed you out because the dogs don't like you—"

"Oh, I remember that!" Mr. Sauter says. "My Lalea just about strangled herself on her chain whenever you came near. Course, she didn't like most folk, but she _hated_ you. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Oh my god," Alphonse says loudly. _"Never mind all that._ Can we please, for thirty seconds, stay on topic? Mister Teller, you _knew!_ Not just that he can see us but also that he's—weird! The kind of weird that made it liable he wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere!"

Dad blinks. "A ditch?"

"We had to assume something. It was that or go with Ed's idea."

"Oh, don't," Mr. Sauter interrupts, distressed, while Mr. Teller— _bastard—_ giggles outright. They'd both been at the station for _that_ cheerful conversation between Ed and Winry. Mr. Sauter steps up, hovers his hands over Alphonse's shoulders like he'd try to settle him if only they could touch. "Al, come now, that's enough. You know Walt only meant well—didn't you, Walt?"

Mr. Teller bobs his head, as sincere as he ever gets. "I can't say what the rest were thinking, but you always look so torn up whenever the topic of your parents came up. I didn't want to be the one to bring your dad up when the chance of him coming back seemed slim to none."

Dad's mouth thins. Alphonse ducks his head to hide his scowl, embarrassed of all things. It's Mr. Sauter who speaks into the empty space couched between them, smiling genially. "It _is_ good to see you again, Van."

* * *

Ms. Lusk won't be leaving until the train wends its unhurried way back down to Resembool in three days time. Granny, usually happy to let her out-of-towners stay under her roof free of charge—seeing as how they're already paying out the nose for the limbs she's built them—surprises Alphonse when she phones Mrs. Forney to arrange for a room at the inn instead.

"I'd have you here as long as you needed any other time," Granny tells her as she finishes writing up the bill, nodding toward the back porch where Dad stepped out to put some distance between him and the dogs, "But that one's a dear friend of mine and he won't be in town long."

"It's no trouble," Ms. Lusk assures her, and even goes out of her way to stick her head out the back door to wish Dad a good day. Then she gathers her things and her usually even-tempered guide dog Pepene and strides off down the road. She'd come up with an obvious gimp in her ankle but today she strides off whistling. Alphonse likes when Ms. Lusk has to stay a few days. She's always good for a few fun stories. Maybe he'll stop by the inn around suppertime to listen in.

Granny waits until Ms. Lusk is all but a speck in the distance before she goes to stick her head out back. "You can stop hiding now."

"I was admiring your garden," Dad corrects woodenly.

"Get in here, freeloader," Granny says, grinning. "I've got a lot of work to get through today. You can do me a favor and make dinner."

Dad smiles as he comes up the steps, holding the door so both Granny and Alphonse can walk "Any requests?"

"A fellow so well-traveled as you has surely picked up a few novel recipes along the way," Granny replies dryly. "Surprise me."

Turns out Dad expected Granny to put him to the test at least once while he's here, because along with everything else she had him but he'd added a few purchases of his own, paid for from his own pocket.

(How do wandering alchemists slash itinerant scholars earn money, anyway?)

"What are you making?" Alphonse asks, perching up on the corner counter out of the way to better watch him work.

Dad hums. "She's always liked it when I make something she won't find elsewhere. I… hmm. Yes, I think so." He offers a smile in Alphonse's direction. "Do you like eggs?"

"Not anymore," Alphonse replies archly.

"Before, then," he corrects, completely unruffled.

"I did, yeah."

"Would you like to learn how to make a Xerxesian dish?"

There's a note of hesitation in his voice, so soft that Alphonse nearly misses it. But for all that Dad tries to go around like he's carved from stone, he looks away from people he's wary of hurting the same way Ed does. For that alone Alphonse has no trouble hopping down to join him by the sink, grinning up excitedly. Dad falters, then returns it as honestly as whenever Granny startles laughter out of him.

"Well, then. It's a bit like an omelette, or perhaps a frittata is a better comparison…."

Dad doesn't share the same sure grace as Granny or Teacher have in the kitchen. He pauses at odd moments, chops and measures everything as if being even a hair's breadth off would mean having to scrap the whole dish and start fresh, and for all his caution he nearly burns it anyway. Dad's panic is charming in its own way; in how another rough edge in Alphonse's impression of him is smoothed away by watching this impossibly complicated almost-stranger nearly spill his hard work on the floor no less than three times. Still, he lays out a charming spread for two before going downstairs to fetch Granny.

 _Kuku sabzi,_ he'd called the dish. Alphonse turns the foreign words over in his mind, regarding it like a clear piece of polished quartz found among river stones. Unexpected and almost alien, but beautiful in a way that demanded curious hands to pick it up and take it home to display.

Of course Xerxes had its own language. He wonders if anyone else survived the country's destruction, merchants or soldiers or a handful of lucky farmhands working just beyond the array. Are there any descendants of those few? Are there any others who still know Xerxesian?

(Has Dad had even _one_ opportunity to speak his native language with anyone outside his own head in four centuries?)

Dad comes back up after a few minutes and, after another of his pauses, moves the pan to the sink to soak before attending to the fresh-brewed coffee. "She'll be up shortly," he murmurs.

Alphonse hums, still half-lost in thought, imagining how Xerxes might have been once upon a time. The faces, the fashions, the brikabrak inside each home. So many dead. So many ghosts caught up in an even smaller space than the scritch-scratch ghosts huddle and weep, an even smaller space than the buried basement he'll huddle in one day too.

"You must miss it," he says. "All of you, I mean."

Dad does not flinch, nor freeze. There's no hunch of his broad shoulders as he stirs in milk and sugar, no tremble to his hands as he picks both mugs up. When he turns, however, his smile is brittle. His eyes are as flat as two bronze coins. "Yes," he says. "Very much."

* * *

The following morning Dad goes for another meandering walk. When he meets other people he dips his head and bids them good day and always seems completely immune to the gobsmacked looks he gets as he hops over a property fence or through somebody's garden. Alphonse can't decide if Dad's just that distracted by so many conversations in his head or if he's a fan of petty vengeance. Granny _had_ been thorough on filling Dad in on all the unkind things said about Mom and Ed, _and_ who had said them.

Honestly, Alphonse prefers meandering the countryside with him instead of following behind in town. There, as yesterday had proven, any number of toothsome so-and-so's were eager to know just _what_ Dad's been up to, and where he's been, if he's heard Ed joined the _military,_ has he heard a fraction of the madcap adventures Ed gets into, and isn't it a fright, the military taking him at such a young age? What's the world even coming to, child soldiers and the threat of war on three borders, it'll be Ishval all over again if Bradley's not careful—not that Ed would be shipped to the _frontlines_ at his age, surely things aren't so dire as that! But he _must_ worry, mustn't he? And oh, how terribly _sad_ it is, Trisha and Alphonse, what _tragedies_ , so _young_ when they passed, and he and she never _did_ get around to tying the knot, _properly,_ did they? The poor dear, it was so _hard_ on her after he left, raising two boys on her own, such a strain on her frail nerves, it's no surprise what happened—

On and on they'd gone, killing Dad with kindness until he managed enough feeble excuses and pleasantries to satiate them for the time being.

Yeah, Alphonse is nothing short of relieved that Dad opts to avoid town altogether today.

Dad had told Granny that he didn't want to be in the way while she worked through a small backlog of paperwork, and she'd told him about the box of his things she'd kept without prompting, clearly keen to keep him around. She's coerced a number of people in town to keep an eye out for Ed and bribed a few more to strongarm Ed up to Rockbell Automail if need be. Dad had given her a look like he knew exactly what she was up to, but thanked her anyway.

(Alphonse loves watching them snipe at each other.)

Of course, Dad's real reason to leave the house is so he can talk freely with _him._ Alphonse didn't even need to ask; Dad had smiled at him first thing this morning, then told Granny he was going to get out of her hair for a couple of hours.

So they walk, and they talk, and every time Dad meets his eye and replies to something he's said it's a thrill that nearly electrifies him, leaves him almost-warm and almost-shaky, giddy and tripping over his words.

But.

But there's only so long he can skirt the edges of what matters, however uneager he is to breach an unhappy topic. He wants to know why Dad left. He's _desperate_ to know, but terrified all the same. What if Ed was right? What if, despite or because of what he is, Dad fled from the responsibility of _being_ their Dad and into the arms of another woman? _Women?_ What if Dad really has left a string of brokenhearted single mothers behind him, going back farther than even Ed's cynicism could ever imagine?

What if, what if, what if?

The memory of physical pain is a slippery thing he's lost his grip on, but grief and fear wound him daily. For all that he yearns for answers, for information and truth and knowledge, this is something he finds himself shying from. He fills the morning, as he has the previous days, with inanity. How did Dad meet Granny? What other countries has he been to? What was the tastiest thing he ate in Hermetica? Did he ever learn to play a musical instrument? Has he ever seen the ocean?

These are safe questions with answers that almost always require lengthy anecdotes to explain the answers. Alphonse exults in the new information, in tales of far off places and wonders that make Dad light up with fondness and nostalgia for people who've long-since passed away.

But.

But something akin to guilt gnaws at him the longer he puts off asking the obvious. His time with Dad won't last forever, this he already knows. Soon, in a handful of days at most, Dad will face whatever cruel—and justified—vitriol Ed will sling at him, then be on his way to….

To what?

He doesn't know. _This_ is what he's been too afraid to ask. He's been too _cowardly_ to ask.

It's far, far from Rockbell Automail that he finds his spine. He wheels a tight circle in the air to meet Dad face-to-face and asks, "Why'd you leave?"

And Dad tells him. More than that, he tells him why he has to leave again. He doesn't soften it; the danger, the stakes, the truth of what's coming. He pays no lip service to the age Alphonse was when he died, speaks as plainly as he would to Pinako or any other adult he trusted. He tells him that nothing short of the fate of the world hangs on the outcome of next spring's solar eclipse. All of Amestris will die in a handful of moments if the Homunculus isn't stopped, killed the same way Dad's people were. He tells him about the array he's spent the last ten years designing and implementing. How even if he's incapacitated it will remain a viable—and the only sure—counterattack. Dad tells him he left to save the country and who-knows how many millions of innocents.

It all sounds so absurd, so impossible. The same as every other story Dad's told him, really. Van Hohenheim: the impossible man. A liar, many would call him. But even as small a town as Resembool has more than its fair share of liars, and Alphonse has seen them all caught in the act time and time again. Dad's no liar, of this much he's sure. He's just a man caught up in a very long and very strange tale.

But a word settles like a bruise he can't ignore. "Incapacitated?"

Dad's eyes crinkle like he knows exactly where the conversation is going, like he'd much rather not have the conversation at all, but knows better than to try and change the subject. "I've never been one for fighting. If it came to that alone, he'd have the upper hand."

"He'll kill you," Alphonse realizes, horrified.

"I'm sturdier than I look—"

"So you're going to let him _keep_ killing you, or maiming you, or _whatever,_ as a distraction until your counter-array can _un-_ kill the entire populace?"

Dad hesitates, which says enough.

"What about after? It'll still be you versus him. If all you do is stand there, he'll just kill you again and again until you _stay_ dead, and he'll _still_ be there afterward to do whatever he likes!"

"I won't be facing him alone. My friends—"

Alphonse barks unkind laughter right in Dad's face. "What use are any of them? They're _dead!"_

For a moment Dad towers over him, broad and burly and _strong_ despite the scholarly way he dresses. For a moment his face clouds with anger. For a moment it seems he might shout. For a moment it seems as if he would do more than shout if Alphonse were as real enough to punish as any other child that's spoken out of turn.

The moment passes.

Dad sighs, his eyes shuttering. Whatever strange anger that filled him gutters to so much smoke. "Are you upset you don't have a headstone?"

"Wh—? _What?"_

"I said—"

"I heard you." He shakes his head, blinking like that'll bring some sense to this conversation. "Who cares? _You're_ going to die next year if you don't—"

"I do."

"What?"

Dad starts walking again, charging ahead with his long-legged stride through grass tall enough to tickle his knees. Alphonse keeps up for as far as he can. " _I_ care. About you, and Edward. Would you feel more at ease if there were a headstone for you beside—beside your mother's? Do you think it would help put Ed's mind at ease?"

"I don't see how that—"

"Was there anything left of your body? Have you looked?"

"Wh—no?"

"No, there wasn't? Or no, you haven't looked?"

"No! I—what does it matter? You should be worried about yourself!"

Dad turns abruptly, fast enough that his ponytail whips over his shoulder. "I'm not," he bites out. "I'm nothing but a _cage_ for the dead inside me. I wanted to be more with your mother, but I squandered that too. If I'd _been_ here, I could have—" He sucks in a breath, forces it out slowly before speaking again. "I owe you so much, Alphonse. More than I have time to give now. Please, answer the question."

This—

This means a lot to Dad.

And they're running out of time. Ed will be here any day, and after that inevitable fallout Dad will leave for….

Maybe for good, depending on how this apocalyptic eclipse turns out. Alphonse is still reeling, still trying to make sense of the _scale_ of such a thing, of the chance that all of Amestris could be gone in the blink of an eye on the whim of a false-faced monster from a fairytale. How absurd. How terrifying.

"I…." He takes an unnecessary breath, watching the wind play with the loose ends of Dad's hair, ruffle the grass in waves. The edge of the forest is a song of whispers, leaves rustling and boughs creaking. They're far from any house out here, on the very edge of Resembool's border. "Whatever happened that night, it wasn't a rebound. There was nothing left of my body before Ed burned our house down."

"Was there any blood? Any sign of injury at all?"

"I followed Granny back to our house when she went to bury the thing we made. All that was left of _me_ were my clothes. Not a drop of blood or anything on them. I just…." He makes a popping gesture with his hands. " _Pfft._ Atomized, or something. I don't know. What does it matter?"

Dad—

—turns away without a word. He walks off, the tension sloughing off his broad shoulders. "If I'm remembering correctly, there are a few others like you out in these woods. Their Aerugan is a bit older than what I picked up, but last I was out to see them we could get on well enough."

"They're back the way we came," Alphonse calls after him. "South of here."

"Three of them, yes, but there's another half dozen just beyond that ridge. All killed in a skirmish around the founding of Amestris. Signore Rovigatti was an alchemist, incidentally, and he—"

"Dad."

"—has the most fascinating opinions regarding the applications of geothermal energy in large-scale transmutations—"

" _Dad."_

He turns back, the picture of surprise to see that Alphonse hasn't moved from where he'd towered and demanded details and ditched the original topic of conversation entirely. "What's the matter?"

Alphonse musters up a smile he hopes is more apologetic than grimacing. "I can't go any farther."

Between them is an invisible wall that may as well be a yawning chasm. Here they stand; the restless dead, and the wandering immortal.

"...oh." Dad's voice is very small. Very quiet. "Well. I…. Pinako probably finished that paperwork by now. Would you like to head back?"

Why is he trying so hard for so little? Isn't he afraid of the Homunculus? Of the risk of dying? Of what might happen if he'll fail? Does he even have a plan B? These and a hundred other questions squeeze the empty space where Alphonse's heart once beat; he's almost breathless, dizzy with worry for a man he'd thought dead until a few days ago.

But Dad doesn't _want_ to worry him. Dad's treating him like a child, like he's too young for the hard truths of the world. He wants to pretend, and make amends, and be as much of a father as he can be to a ghost.

A part of Alphonse is insulted.

A far greater part of him is grateful for the attempt.

* * *

While they were gone Granny dragged the crate full of Dad's things up from the basement. The two of them go through it after lunch, Alphonse overseeing with a grin hidden behind his hands. It isn't much, in the scheme of things. A shelf's worth of old books and handwritten journals, a few photographs, an inkwell Granny had made him decades back, a few other odds and ends. Alphonse is really only interested in the books; there are pictures a-plenty of Mom strewn around Rockbell Automail, and plenty more of Mom and Dad in the same photograph book that's got the pictures of Dad going back fifty years.

The enormous book of mythology that Ed had read obsessively during his rehabilitation is a beautiful thing, richly illustrated and covering a number of cultures. Dad lingers overlong on the scant chapter on Xerxes for Alphonse's benefit; the thinnest by a suspicious margin now that Alphonse knows the truth. It praises the Philosopher for hiding away the Stone that destroyed Xerxes in its hubris. Even the woodcut of the Philosopher is a mockery, broad-shouldered and square of face, lording over a sea of grateful followers. Dad-adjacent in a way that'd make Alphonse's skin crawl if he still had any.

In addition to that there are several other books written in Amestrian, none of them less than seventy years old. History and alchemy, chemistry and philosophy, medical and theological; a traveling scholar's primer on a foreign country's state of mind. There are a few slim volumes in unmistakable Xingese; intricate characters printed vertically in faint red columns, with the odd page filled with illustrations done in sweeping black ink. Alphonse recognizes the art style from a few houses around town, though those wall scrolls are all on wall scrolls all done in far greater detail and by hands of obviously better skill.

There are notes scribbled in the margins of all of them, indecipherable cursive that he and Ed had never been able to make heads or tails of. They'd concluded it was either a foreign language they'd never seen before, or a cipher, or perhaps even both. It's only after going from the medical text straight to the last book Granny saved from the fire that Alphonse puts it together. He doesn't think he makes any noise when he realizes he's been futilely attempting to read Xerxesian since he was five years old, but Dad does give him an appraising eyebrow when Granny isn't looking.

"I remember this old thing," she says, tugging it carefully from Dad's loose fingers and the soft cloth it had been wrapped in. She tuts when the spine cracks loudly. "Lord. How old is this anyway? It looks like it ought to be on display in a museum."

"A little older than you," Dad teases.

 _"Ha,_ so half as old as you?"

Dad hums noncommittally, and Alphonse can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Granny leans closer to get a better look at the fully-colored illustration she'd opened to; a beautiful picture of two men in embroidered robes on a hillside. The younger man has been drawn with a beard the exact color of Dad's, and both have unmistakable yellow eyes. "You had this with you when we met. You clucked at me if I so much as breathed on it funny."

"That's because you kept breathing pipe smoke on it," he reminds her. She only cackles again.

"What language is this anyway? Ishvalan?"

Dad glances at Alphonse, clearing expecting—something. What though, Alphonse has no idea. "Xerxesian, actually."

Granny sits up abruptly, all the better to turn astonished eyes on Dad. "You're joking. It's not an _original,_ is it?"

"I came across it in a museum in Almaliq just before I left Xing. Beautiful, isn't it?"

"You stole it."

"I did _not."_

"So you _were_ more than a drunken scoundrel back in your prime, eh?" She's grinning now, wider the more Dad flusters. "Had to get your kicks with a little art theft, is that it? What other priceless artifacts did you ferret away? Should I have been prying up the floorboards for your secret stash? Are _you_ the one who ran off with the crown jewels of Oirialla?"

"Pinako…." Dad practically _whines._ It's incredible.

"That doesn't sound like a 'no' to me!"

"I didn't steal this." He plucks the books out of her reach, giving her a reproachful look over his glasses as he settles it back onto its protective cloth. "It was a gift."

Granny laughs herself straight into a fit of smoker's cough, deep and wracking in a way that always worries Alphonse a little to hear such a loud noise boom out of someone hardly taller than him. "From who? The _Emperor?"_

"A friend," Dad replies simply, but when Granny looks away to wipe her eyes, still chuckling, he looks over at Alphonse and nods.

"Of course you were friends with the Emperor," Alphonse sighs. "No, wait, I bet it was more than one. How many Emperors have you _known?"_

Dad thinks about it as he turns to another illustration in the book, this one of another blond and yellow-eyed man on horseback. Overhead, a bird with crimson plumage soars through a faded blue sky. After a moment of consideration Dad taps two fingers on the table, then taps again.

"Four?" A slight shake of his head. _"Twenty-two?"_ A nod.

Alphonse doesn't even know why he's surprised.

Granny, recovered from her mirth, settles her spectacles back on her face and picks up her mug. "Why in the hell would a 'friend' give you something like this?"

Dad's mouth curls in a sly little smile. "He had a thing for blonds."

Granny toys with him like a cat that's caught a bird it hasn't decided if it'll eat or not, and he pretends to be cowed as anything _right_ up until he sees an opportunity to make her choke on her coffee. No wonder she liked him enough to drag him back to Resembool.

* * *

There's a cold front coming in. The radio promises rain all through the southeastern regions, warning of flooding likely in some areas and reminding of the proper measures that ought to be taken for those who live near bodies of water. It's not likely to rain much here in Resembool, not this close to the cusp of summer, but Alphonse feels a twinge of anxiety all the same. He knows all the parents down in the town proper will be corralling their younger children inside until after the storm dissipates, barring windows and guarding doors from any of the more adventurous breakout schemes that might get drummed up as boredom sets in. He knows that tongues will wag, as tongues do, telling again the cautionary tale of the poor Elric brothers to any who need a sharp reminder of how dangerous the river can be.

Edward: lost a leg, lost his family, lost his mind, likely to lose his life off in the military.

And Alphonse: lost.

It's a shame, really. He loves rainy days otherwise. The smell (such as he remembers), the cool wind (such as he remembers), the peace (such as he remembers). He still has his sight and hearing at least, and he can still appreciate the cool gray skies, the pitter-patter tapping of strange music on rooftops and tree boughs, the flush of new green staining the countryside, all the little mushrooms that spring up like a magic trick. He tries to not let the story the town cobbled together to explain what Ed and the Rockbells won't sour his mood, but sometimes...

Sometimes the silence before a storm is the loneliest place to be..

But he's not alone now, is he?

He glances over at Dad, who appears as lost in thought as he's been. More, probably. Neck-deep in five hundred conversations at any given moment. Alphonse has no idea how he manages to get out of bed every day and pretend that nothing's wrong. Probably the same way so many others out there manage the same thing; knowing that the less attention drawn to oneself the better, no matter the personal cost. It's one thing to be weird or sick or broken; it's something infinitely worse to be caught in the act.

Alphonse looks back the way they came, where the sun's well along its westward arc. Sunset isn't far off. Most of Resembool is bathed in a warm afternoon glow, all its rough edges softened, made distant and easy to forgive. He and Dad had come up from the town proper before this; Dad carefully carries a modest bouquet in both hands. Mrs. Caddeo had made her usual attempts at simpering conversation, but it had run off Dad's cool passivity like water off a duck; she'd left him to browse in an uneasy silence.

Dad only went to the flower shop after Alphonse mentioned Ed's habit of making wreaths. Would it have occurred to him to bring flowers to Mom's grave otherwise?

He supposes it doesn't matter. It's not like Mom's ghost is hanging around to take offense.

There's someone else visiting the cemetery when they arrive. Mitch Corcoran nods politely as Dad passes, murmurs something too low for Alphonse to hear. Dad nods back without replying but doesn't stop. Alphonse is relieved when Mr. Corcoran takes the hint and goes farther down the row where he buried his wife in 1882.

They come to Mom's grave.

They stand there quietly.

Nothing needs to be said. Nothing needs to be forced. This grave doesn't hold Mom. There's a body quietly decomposing under their feet, but her soul's no longer bound to it. Mom's not here. She hasn't been here for ten years. Mom is a few pictures in Granny's collection, a few knickknacks saved from the fire, a few stories, a few memories. That's all.

Mom's gone. This grave is simply someplace for the living to come to grieve now and then, some place tidy to bury what she left behind. Alphonse hopes it's nice, wherever she is. He hopes she's happy. He hopes she's not angry with him and Ed for trying to bring her back. He hopes she's not disappointed they failed.

"I don't remember what she sounded like," he admits quietly.

Dad stirs slowly, swimming up out of whatever mental labyrinth he'd been caught up in. He kneels to place the bouquet before the grave. Alphonse expects him to transmute it into a wreath too, but he doesn't. The paper wrapping crinkles under his rough fingers as he adjusts the ribbon; purple, to match the flowers. Mom's favorite color.

"She never raised her voice," Dad says, standing again. "She never needed to, to get her point across. She had this way of looking at someone she was angry with that would make anyone feel two inches tall."

How many times had she given him and Ed the gimlet eye for making another mess? "I definitely remember that."

Dad glances down at him with a look like he knows exactly what he's not saying, though the knowing twinkling in his eyes is softened by memories. "She loved to sing. She had a real gift for it too, for all that she never had any formal training. She only needed to hear a song once to memorize it perfectly, and when she got tired of whatever the radio had on she'd come up with her own songs, just like that."

Alphonse remembers that too. Not the songs themselves, but the way she sang them. Swaying her hips as she washed the dishes. Spinning circles in the living room with him or Ed stood on her feet. A hum that vibrated down her arm, through her warm hand on his back, and settled deeply in his chest as he fell asleep.

"You met Mom when she was, what, eighteen? Nineteen?"

Dad hums noncommittally, like he's hoping Alphonse won't press for details so he won't have to say something like, _Younger than that, but I'd prefer it if the ghost of my dead son didn't think I was a dirty old man._

Which, _pfft._ It's a bit late for that, not that Alphonse would ever say as such. A 400-something year old man showing interest in _anybody_ can't really help but look like a dirty old man. There comes a point where what matters most is the intent behind the interest. If it turned out Dad really was the type to leave a string of broken-hearted young mothers behind him then sure, Alphonse would have happily shouted himself cross-eyed until Dad displayed appropriate contriteness. But he'd have to be blind to not see the way Dad loved—loves—Mom. He'd have to be cruel to ignore the waver in Dad's voice whenever he says her name.

He doesn't care that Mom had probably only been a handful of years older than Winry and Ed when she met Dad and decided this weirdo was the one for her. He just wants to know more about _Mom._

So they talk. Alphonse asks the questions that he never thought to when he was still alive. Little things, little details that aren't—important. Not on any grand scale, not compared to the grand and tragic end of Xerxes, the rich history and political minefield of Xing, the far more literal minefield of Amestris' endless border skirmishes. He asks how they met, and where, and what their first date was like. He asks every single variation of "What was Mom's favorite..." he can think of. He asks if she ever wore her hair short, if she ever saw East City, if she'd ever gotten drunk and done something stupid for the sheer fun of it. Dad seems happy for the excuse to go on about her in detail, perking up even more once Mr. Corcoran leaves and it's just the two of them in the cemetery.

A question occurs to him that he mentally flinches from, but that only means it's too important not to ask. "Did she— _want_ to be a mother? Or was Ed an accident?"

"He was," Dad confirms after one of his usual pauses. "You were too, though we'd settled here by the time she realized she was pregnant again. Ed, however..." Dad chuckles.

"What? What is it?"

"I'm a bit embarrassed now, but—well. Before, when I was still human, I always liked the idea of starting a family of my own. I was a freedman, with a title and more wealth than I'd ever dreamed of having, but it didn't feel right to keep it to myself. I wanted to share—everything with someone. There just wasn't time, not when I worked in the King's court, not so close to... Well. It was only ever an idle wish. One the Homunculus never did understand. He only saw families as a handy unit of measurement for how humans breed for the continuation of the species—"

"Charming," Alphonse remarks dryly.

"Yes, well. What I mean to say is..."

Dad sighs deeply, considering his words with great care. "When she told me we were going to have a baby, I panicked. The idea of being a father terrified me. Of being responsible for something so fragile and temporary. Or what if turned out as monstrous as me? What if, what if. A baby isn't a choice to be made on a whim one day. Children are—important. Incredibly so. And there I'd gone, all but forcing Trisha into shelving every other potential thing she might be considering to do. Her whole life ahead of her, and she was so _young..."_

Another sigh, this one a quieter thing. A letting go of what was. Acknowledging that for all that the past can still wound, it can't be changed. "Well, she tracked me down in short order. Scolded me soundly for making her run around in her condition, then asked me what I was so afraid of and tore my every last worry into shreds in no time at all. She told me everything would be fine, better than fine, and of course I believed her. But I was still—nervous. Even after Edward proved to be perfectly human, and you as well, I was still so scared of hurting you boys. She never saw the sense in that. Loving you both was the easiest thing in the world for her."

Dad looks at him, direct and matter-of-fact. No room for argument at all in his eyes. "She loved you boys. Don't ever think for one moment that she didn't."

Alphonse smiles up at him, wishing he could do more than say, "Thank you. Really. I—"

 _"HOHENHEIM!"_

They both twitch, though it's Alphonse who recognizes the furious snarl and the figure in black practically sprinting up the road. "Oh no."

"Is that...?"

"Yup. Sorry, in advance. Or maybe not." He shrugs, flustered. "Just—he's definitely going to keep shouting at you."

Dad visibly steels himself as he turns around. "I suppose that's the least I deserve."

* * *

 _A/N: Kuku sabzi is a Persian dish I've not had the opportunity to try, nor am I brave enough in the kitchen to try making it myself. It certainly sounds delicious though! The book Hohenheim and Granny look over isn't any book in particular, though I did pull up references of the Persian miniature art style from the Shahnama Project._

 _Zero promises for when the next chapter will be up. I continue to be a slow and easily distracted writer. I've signed up for several fandom events to keep myself busy through the summer as well as to kick my butt into gear so I stop fretting about writing and just write. I'm going to stress again that I have no intention of ever abandoning this story, even if it takes me forever to finish it._

 _I wish you all the best during these difficult and strange times, and I hope none of you are getting as stir crazy as poor Al._


End file.
